


Do [No] Harm

by ItsSweaterWeather



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, BBC Radio Four Porn, Back to the beginning, Complete, Eventual Smut, F/M, Feels, First Meetings, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Masturbation, Molly Hooper is bad at feelings too sometimes, Molly is smitten (duh), Oral Sex, POV Molly, POV Molly Hooper, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post TFP, Sex, She's Not Your Doormat, She's a DOCTOR, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings, Sherlock is an arse (duh), Sherlolly - Freeform, Slow Burn, Smooching, Smut, So much angst, Spoilers, Town & Country manor house porn, Wank!Lock, bodily fluids porn, conflicted molly, restaurant name dropping just because, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:18:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 86,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9660893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsSweaterWeather/pseuds/ItsSweaterWeather
Summary: Molly gets her I Love You post-mortem. An angsty slow burn as Molly & Sherlock try to repair their friendship. But the 'I love you' might have cut too deeply...“Honestly, Sherlock,” she huffed, lining the supplies up on the worktop. “You fancy yourself a pirate but, seriously, you're more damsel in distress.” Molly motioned impatiently, a silent order for him to submit to her care. “What or who on earth did this to you?”Sherlock didn’t answer immediately. Molly could feel his eyes on her as she cleaned the first cut. For some reason, his silence irritated her.“Well?” Her tone was more harsh than she intended.“You.” The sound was so low, she looked up to be sure it came from him.**all images just for your enjoyment. i own no rights. the characters & their likenesses, sadly, don't belong to me**





	1. From The Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 8 hours after ILY + years before...

Molly Hooper sat alone in her office, desperate for distraction, trying to focus on the screen in front of her. Failing on both counts.

It was the easiest thing in the world to do: Hit _send_ , salvage their friendship. Hit _send_ and they’d be right as rain. 

 _Wrong,_  the buzzing in her brain warned.

Only it wasn’t buzzing. It was a voice. Set on an endless loop.  
  
_I love you…_

His voice.

“Hit _send_ , Hooper,” she whispered. “Everything’ll go back to normal.”

_I love you…_

That wasn’t _their_ normal.

Molly laughed at the absurdity. She’d spent years willing Sherlock to say those words to her, ever since their first meeting at St. Bart’s…

 ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

She was a junior doctor, in her third year of specialized pathology training, happily up to her elbows in a lorry accident victim when Sherlock stormed through the morgue doors. The tails of his enormous black coat and Mr. Tomlin, Bart’s director of credentialing and governance, trailed behind him. The mortuary didn’t receive many hospital administrators. Nor did it play host to 6-foot tall strangers possessing skin bordering on preternatural. Something deep inside Molly’s belly fluttered at the sight of him.

It quickened when she registered his lush bottom lip.

And pooled between her legs after catching a glimpse of his very prominent clavicle. Molly harbored an indecent fetish centered around clavicles.

His was superb.

She’d almost forgotten about Mr. Tomlin until she heard him gasp at the sight of her, a lacerated kidney in her hand. The visitor, however, didn’t flinch. He crossed the room, hands clasped behind his back, in two smooth strides and stood on the opposite side of the autopsy table. Without so much as a “hello”, he bent over the body for a closer inspection.

Infuriating. What a downright pompous man.

Infuriating, pompous man with an absolutely lovely pattern of moles scattered down the muscular column of his neck.

Molly couldn’t help herself from leaning in. His scent wrapped around her - posh soap and something dangerous - pulled her down as if by a string. More like a rope. Impossible to break free from. She was so startled when he looked up at her, looked _into_ her, with blue eyes as deep and cool as a glacial lake, she nearly dropped the kidney.

“Oh! I..um…I…I should probably put this…down...otherwise, the cleaning crew'll have kidney pie all over the floor!” She snorted. Loudly. In front of him.

The visitor made no attempt to ease her embarrassment. He straightened and watched. Her. “Great,” she mumbled, fumbling around for a clean specimen pan, hoping he’d direct that laser beam focus elsewhere...

She couldn't help wanting to remain the center of his attention. Indefinitely.

_What was wrong with her?!_

In just three minutes, he'd already proven himself to be an infuriating, pompous…probably posh arse given his coat and suit. And scent. What kind of man doesn’t at least say “hello” upon entering a room?

Infuriating pompous men with eyes now more gray-green than blue, she noted. The change intrigued her more than she cared to admit. Molly momentary lost herself in his gaze, watching the colors of his irises dance and shift until she felt her face flush.

“Oh shit,” she whispered. Molly knew she was no beauty. Short, constantly tongue-tied and supremely uncoordinated when out of her lab coat, she didn’t normally garner interest from beautiful men. Not even the prats. And now her body decided to crank up the humiliation, breaking out in its signature wave of red splotches.

“Well, then, Miss Hooper, I’d like to introduce a new...associate to you.”

_Associate?_

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

 _Sherlock?_   Yep, she called it: Posh.

“Mr. Holmes, this is Miss Hooper —“

“Molly," she corrected, smiling bold and bright despite the warm stinging of her cheeks. "You can call me Molly.” She thrust a hand in his direction, instantly appalled at her eagerness to touch his skin. And more than a little put off when he made no move to shake her hand in return.

 _Oh, come on!_ Either she was being played or this tosser was a legitimate sociopath.

She raised her chin at him, stretching her arm out even farther. A challenge, daring him to defy social convention with Mr. Tomlin so nearby.

Sherlock blinked, sliding his eyes down to her hand and back up to her face. The corner of his mouth twitched upward in amusement.

Molly railed against the liquid warmth spreading through her body and pulled back, catching sight of her hand. Her _gloved_ hand. Covered in blood and bits of kidney tissue. Dear god! Could this afternoon get any worse? Spontaneous combustion seemed to be the only reasonable way out - literally dying from embarrassment.

Mr. Tomlin was utterly oblivious to her discomfort, nattering on with his introductions. Sherlock's mouth stretched into a wide, tight-lipped grin and still he said nothing. Tomlin instructed Molly to afford the apparent graduate chemist every courtesy, skimming over Sherlock's vague ties to Scotland Yard and an older brother with some authority in the British government. _All the authority._

“Well, then. I’ll leave the two of you to get better acquainted,” the nervous little man yipped and scurried off, most likely to vomit in the morgue's anteroom.

Sherlock barely acknowledged Mr. Tomlin's exit. Seconds seemed to tick into minutes. He'd yet to utter a word. His eyes fixed on her face, examining her as though she were a specimen under glass. 

Molly rushed to cover the furious beating of her heart. “Don’t suppose he’s keen on kidney pie, then,” she snorted. Again.

 _Shit._ She should really stop talking… “Perhaps I should’ve offered him the liver —“

“Tell me, Miss Hooper,” he interrupted, “do you moonlight as a comedian?”

His voice rumbled through her. It was low in timbre but filled the room with ease. The sound unnerved Molly - pleasantly so. Kind of like fire, the way it has the ability to ripple over you, warm you. Or completely destroy you...

He was an imperious arse. She was a credentialed doctor for goodness sakes! She didn’t have time to nurse a graduate chemist with a hobby! No matter how gorgeous.

“What? Comedian? Me? I’m a doctor,” she stuttered. “I’m in my third, no fourth, wait, third —“

“It a requires a simple yes or no, Miss Hooper.”

Was he kidding her? He must be kidding. He was, what, a year older than her? Maybe two, she guessed. Who walks around in a suit jacket and tailored trousers at that age? Self-important bastard. And what’s with the ludicrous overcoat? Did he fancy himself a vampire or something? And that ridiculous head of hair… didn’t posh boys own mirrors and combs - in multiple rooms of their Sloane Square townhomes?

Her fingers twitched. She was assaulted by an overwhelming need to bury them in those very curls - curls she knew would feel like spun silk - and dig her fingernails deep into his scalp.

She also had an urge to slap him right across the cheek - hard - marking his alabaster skin with her handprint.

Laying claim to those cheekbones and that sharp nose.

“I…I don’t understand,” was all she could muster.

He didn’t respond, making her think _he_ didn’t understand.

“Well, no matter,” he huffed, “If the answer’s ‘yes’, I suggest you consider other hobbies. if the answer’s ‘no’, I'm inclined to thank you for not pursuing any of the comedic arts. Jokes aren’t really your area of expertise, are they… _Mol-ly Hooper?”_

He drew out the syllables of her name longer than necessary, caressing each before letting them land at her feet. In that moment, Molly would’ve afforded him ‘every courtesy’. And more. 

He turned and stalked toward the mortuary door. “I’ll be in next week to run a few experiments. How does Tuesday suit?”

The emotional whiplash made Molly dizzy. Her brain sputtered trying to work out a biting response. She followed behind him to…what? Stop him? Berate him?

Kiss him? He was an absolute shit.

And she'd tell him just that, beautiful boy or no.

Sherlock stopped short and spun round to face her. The suddenness of his movements came close to knocking Molly out of her sensible professional clogs. He looked down at her. “Oh, and I’ll need a few things. A reasonably fleshy, and very fresh, cadaver for one. And an assistant.” There it was again, that twitch at the corner of his mouth and the corresponding flutter in her belly. “Mr. Tomlin mentioned the juniors might be at my disposal but —” He paused, letting the room go perfectly silent. “— I’d prefer it if we kept my visits just between us. I like to know I can count on my assistant and working with a different surrogate each time just makes my work more frustrating. So, the cadaver and you, _Mol-ly Hooper_.” He turned back toward the door and pushed through, leaving her no opening to object. From halfway down the hall, he added, “I’ll bring my own riding crop. Afternoon.”

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ 

 _So long ago..._ The computer's cursor blinked at her, bright and angry, returning Molly to the present. How was it she remembered every detail about their first quarter hour together and nothing of the rest of that week? Strange, considering it included a mini-break holiday with her dad and her cousin’s wedding.

All she remembered was Sherlock…and the agony of counting down the slow hours until he returned to the morgue the following Tuesday. With his own riding crop.

Nine years had passed between them since that first afternoon.

And two _I love yous._

Three if she counted his instructions to her. _"Just say these words..."_

Four, if Molly counted her own reply.

No matter how she did the math, the sum total hurt like hell.

Molly hit _send._


	2. Prior & After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5 hours prior to ILY / 10 hours after ILY

**(5 hours PRIOR to _I love you.)_**

Molly’s day was off to a winning start.

An overnight power surge took out the electric to the entire flat. Now, instead of quietly observing the anniversary of her father’s death, alone, she was dodging two burly repairmen who’d laid siege to her kitchen.

“Apologies, Miss, but she’s gonna take a couple a’ hours,” said the one with the snake tattoo peeking out from his long shirtsleeve.

“Well, em, could you, maybe, fix one room first so I could camp out in there while you get the rest of the flat up and running?” Molly hadn’t planned on leaving the house today, at least not until her overnight at Bart's. And at least not until she’d had a good cry about her da.

“Oh, ‘fraid not. Gotta keep the whole place offline ’til we’re done. Don’t wanna blow anyone up now, do we,” the one with the glass eye winked at her.

Knackered and in no mood to decamp, Molly sighed, “What am I supposed to do then?”

“Why don’t you go grab a nice cuppa down at the shops, have a ‘girl’s day’,” Snake Arm offered cheerily. “I’ll text you when we’ve wrapped up.”

“Then you can come back and stay put,” Glass Eye chimed in. “Don’t worry about a thing, Miss. East Wind Electric’ll take care of everything.”

What choice did she have but to follow their suggestion? She was lucky to find them on such short notice to begin with. No use hampering progress, moping around while they made repairs.

Molly pulled her hair back into a pony, grabbed her laptop and headed off to the Birchwood for the largest cup of coffee she could buy.

The Birchwood was known for their scones. Molly was known to enjoy scones. What's more, she deserved one. She tucked into the little booth and flipped open her laptop, ready to dive into some sugar, caffeine, and work. Fuel in advance of her overnight at Bart's. Comfort for her heart. Her father would've approved.  

>  Congratulations Miss Hooper…

The email she'd just received should’ve buoyed Molly’s spirits. She’d been downright chuffed that her white paper had been chosen as a first alternate for the annual pathology conference. The presentation slots were extremely limited - only ten available for all of the EU division - and hers survived a rigorous vetting to make alternate. If any of the marquee EU presentations failed to meet standards, she’d get the call to present. In Hong Kong. Early next week.

She should've been thrilled...and would've been.  _Before_. Before the Culverton Smith business. Before Sherlock arranged for her to fetch him from the suburbs in an ambulance.

>  …as their paper has been disqualified, we extend the invitation to you - as first alternate - to present in their place on behalf of the EU division…

_Before_ she conducted the physical. Before her hands and her heart shook with each new track mark she discovered on his emaciated body. Before he shot her a look, equal parts warning and plea, on his way into Smith’s office.  

> … pleased to welcome you to Hong Kong on Monday. You’ll have the next day to acclimate before enjoying the opening reception on Tuesday evening…

_Before_ she joined John and him at Bea’s Cake Shop, watching as he pretended to enjoy the Victoria sponge she’d ordered for his birthday. Molly knew full well he preferred the triple chocolate ganache but Sherlock didn't need the additional stimulant. Sponge with fruit filling was passive aggressive punishment. And he dutifully accepted his penance. "Ah, Victoria sponge. My favorite. However did you know, Molly?"

> …round table discussions for the entirety of the day on Wednesday and Thursday…

She was scared witless for him. He was declared clean after a physician-monitored detox, she being the doctor in question per Mycroft's request. But Molly knew Sherlock still reeled from Mary’s death and the fallout it caused. Leaving London now for the conference and its subsequent tour meant three weeks away. 

> …your presentation on Friday afternoon…

Three weeks was too long to spend away from a friend so desperately in need - especially a friend intent on telling her, _proving_ to her, that he was _just fine._  

> …travel with members of the EU delegation for subsequent presentations in Hanoi…

She was angry as hell at him! How many times would he risk his health, his sanity, his _sobriety_? Prior to Mary’s death, he’d succumbed to his addiction only as a _substitute_ for ‘the game.’

This "Cereal Killer" case was the first time he’d ever shot up to _play_ the game.

No, it wasn’t, she admitted to herself. He’d done it before. _Magnussen_. She'd monitored that detox as well. And she’d used her time wisely, calling him out for his behavior. Again. At Bart's. At Baker Street. Via text... Molly still felt the sting of her palm striking his face. She’d never been so angry at anyone before in her life.

She’d never been so frightened of her emotions. Or of his. Sherlock avoided eye contact with her while she confronted him about the chemicals in his system and the harm he'd done himself, his friends. The first slap unleashed an avalanche of emotion within her. Anger, fear, disappointment, worry. _Love_. Sherlock made no attempt to block her second strike. Or her third.  

> …culminating in the week-long international conference in Singapore…

Had she known then that he was to be sent away - for good, _forever_ \- after Magnussen's death, she would've still yelled at him. Then she would've done what she'd been aching to do since the moment they met: Pull him close, wrap her arms and legs around his loneliness. Never let him go.

Instead, here they were again, at the intersection of self-harm and collateral damage. 

> …advise us of your intent to participate by noon tomorrow…

The beautiful boy (who was well into manhood, she reminded herself!) couldn’t stop hurting himself or the people who loved him. Molly didn’t need to be here for it. She could accept the invitation. _Should_  accept. It would be the highlight of her career thus far.

Molly sighed. They'd hit the low point of their friendship. Finally. Not much lower they could sink. Leaving him alone for a few weeks wasn’t going to have much of an impact. It hadn't in the past. She could heal her own wounds, on her own terms, while someone else nursed Sherlock’s needle welts and bruised psyche for a change.

But John had his own wounds to heal, in addition to caring for Rosie…

Molly had no one. Not really. Except the three of them. John needed her to pick up the emotional slack where Rosie was concerned - though he’d never ask outright.

She should stay. For Rosie. For John.

For Sherlock.

Molly closed her laptop and settled back into the chair. It was almost 1 pm. She had just under twenty-four hours to make her decision. She'd get through her overnight shift and reply in the morning. Right now, all she wanted to do was go home, put on some of her dad's favorite music and ask him for guidance. If the guys back at her flat could just finish already... 

Her mobile vibrated in answer to her prayers...well, at least _one_ of her prayers. She'd figure out the answers to the others herself.

 _All set Miss._  
_Have a lovely rest of your day._  
_\- East Wind Electric_

_✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸_

**(10 hours AFTER _I love you.)_**

_I love you…_

A _whoosh!_ signaled that Molly’s email was on its way, audible confirmation that her decision regarding the upcoming Pathology conference was the correct choice.

She squeezed her eyes shut. The dark behind her lids, the quiet hum of Bart’s in the small hours of the morning, did nothing to drown out the sound his voice. If anything, the lack of noise amplified Sherlock's rich baritone. She wasn't stuck on his mechanical response to her ultimatum. That first 'I love you' was delivered by a man so skeptical of the sentiment that even saying the words to play “the game” (whatever game he was involved in), clearly pained him.

How easy it was for Molly to imagine Sherlock looking down at his mobile, incredulous, hoping he’d misunderstood her demand that he _say it like you mean it._  Her mind conjured up his elegant, lean face, speeding through the range of expressions he generally reserved for the _ordinary people_. The perturbed crease in his brow. The agitated quirk of his mouth. That trademark eye roll. Molly’s side of their bargain most definitely garnered her an eye roll.

Had her heart not ached, she would’ve smiled at his discomfort.

It was the additional 'I love you' - unnecessary and unadorned - clouding her judgment. Sherlock didn’t whisper as though the words were a secret he found too distasteful to share. Nor did he make a bold statement, arrogant and rushed, like the man himself.

That 'I love you' was pure Sherlock. A deduction. The only explanation of all the facts. And, like so many of the other deductions he’d made throughout his life, he’d arrived at it with help.

 _Her_ help.

The realization was as heady to her as the sentiment itself. _She_ coaxed it from his lips. Not John. Not Mary. Not the dead woman with no face in the morgue. Speaking to him over mobile, Molly couldn’t look into those crystalline eyes, watch his emotions form the words. 

She couldn't see but she could feel. The beautiful boy meant it, damn him. 

Sherlock’s words were a confession, not an appeasement. The physical separation afforded each of them the privacy they needed to make a public declaration - never mind that the words were for a case. Molly laid herself bare, finally shrugging off the weight of her burden.

She set it down between them. Now it belonged to both of them. 

There should be a bigger word for the soaring happiness she felt at his second 'I love you.' As it came served over her own tears and wrapped in close to a decade's worth of barbed wire, she couldn't puzzle out the letters.

_l-o-v-e._

And then her mobile went dead, leaving her alone. Again.

She'd learned to navigate her love for him, alone. It was rocky but she’d developed sure-footed techniques for maneuvering around her heart’s roadblocks; cheerily dating other men and truly happy to be one of the few of people included in the camaraderie of 221b.

A warm affinity for Sherlock the _person_ , an emotion she associated with being a grown-up, had finally supplanted her earlier romantic daydreams of Sherlock the _man._

_Liar._

It merely crowded alongside her other feelings and threatened to burst her heart. After years of push and pull, he'd cut through her barbed wire in a single phone call. Molly wondered if he'd suffered any cuts from doing so? If the admission pained him because he'd finally spoken the truth or because he wished the words to be a lie? He'd hung up. A case. Always something else. Someone else. That was their normal. That was why friendship - after silly, stupid years of longing - was a better option.

Safer.

But he'd ruined it. There was nothing to protect her from Sherlock's 'I love you' now. They were in free fall - or at least she was. 

“Christ, this day.” Molly exhaled deeply and opened her eyes. She had to get back to the juniors under her tutelage. Slogging through the final hours of their first overnight, they'd probably appreciate a dose of encouragement. She retrieved her mobile from inside the drawer into which it had been banished.  Reluctantly, Molly took it off mute and scanned her messages.

A voicemail icon flashed next to Greg’s number. Molly hit play, eager for a distraction. With any luck, he was on his way in, accompanied by a particularly gruesome case, proving his oft-repeated point that nothing good happens after midnight. God bless him, he knew how to cheer up a pathologist  

> _Molly, it's Greg…I've some news...it’s about Sherlock…_

“So much for a distraction,” she grumbled.  

> _…Nothing physically wrong, Molly. Just, well, it’s quite a thing…_

> _…Sherrinford…Mycroft and John…_

> _…cameras in the kitchen of your flat…_

> _…a sister. Eurus. Apparently means “East Wind.” Eurus Holmes…_

"Oh my god!"

she shot up out of her chair, "the repairmen!!"  

> _…a psychological experiment…broke him a bit, I think, Molly…_

His 'I love you.'    

> …Look, it’s too much to go into. I’m an hour out. I’ll stop by Bart's on my way back to the Yard…

Molly checked the timestamp: 3:32 am. It was It now 4:45 am. She raced back to the lab.


	3. Heart In Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much angst can I wring from these two, post-ILY?  
> How much angst can you stand?  
> Let's have a go at it, shall we?

“Oh. It’s _you._ ”

Sherlock’s body reacted to Molly’s voice before his brain could catch up, coat tail swinging around behind him. The sudden movement almost knocked a tray of slides off the lab's center worktop, an obnoxious rattle upsetting the room’s working quiet.

Molly’s tone upsetting  _him._ “You were expecting someone else.” 

“ _Anyone_ else.” she exhaled, an echo of that too recent day in front of the Watson's, after Mary's death.

Sherlock felt a vague tightness in his chest at the reproach. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but it wasn't this, her...displeasure. With  _him._  

He should've expected it. A quick analysis of their acquaintance substantiated what he feared to be the truth: He disappointed her, again and again.

No. Not acquaintance. Their _friendship._

By her grace, Molly welcomed him into her heart as a friend. And he'd given her nothing in return. Nothing close to what she deserved. 

She looked exhausted, her deep brown eyes ringed with smudges of mascara. Strands of chestnut hair had come loose from her ponytail.

_Beautiful._

He smiled and waited for her inevitable approach to his corner of the lab, anticipating the way her scent - lily of the valley and sanitizing alcohol - filled the space around him.

Molly folded her arms across her chest and kept her distance.

Again, Sherlock’s body responded, stepping toward her, before receiving the marching orders from his brain. He suddenly craved the ambient heat he'd come to associate with her nearness. The warmth he felt while she was busy hovering at his elbow or working alongside him in companionable silence. He'd taken it for granted, that she'd always make herself available to him whenever he visited the lab. 

Sherlock pushed the thought aside, If he could get Molly alone, he'd regain control of this situation. “Shall we…?” he nodded, inviting her to step into the hallway.

Molly smiled without a trace of joy and not at all in his direction. She evaded his approach, moving to the opposite side of the high worktop. “I’ve been away —,” she explained, “out of the lab for a bit. So I’d rather we just stay…here.”

“Work never stops at the dead center of town, then?” he teased, the words landing harshly between them. Molly shot him a look which Sherlock greedily held, silently pleading with her give him just one smile.

She looked down just as the corners of her mouth kicked up. “I’ve got three hours of work left and only one hour to get it all finished, Sherlock. Whatever you’ve come here to explain, it’s…it’s not necessary. Greg filled me in.”

“Oh. I see.” There it was again, the dull ache in his chest - no doubt the waning effects of the day’s adrenaline rush. He made a mental note to have John look him over. Later. Right now, he needed to be close to her.

 _And she’s effectively put the worktop between us._ Sherlock resisted the urge to follow her to that side. Given the events of the last few hours, he doubted he’d ever have the opportunity to feel Molly’s warmth again.

 _Doubt_. He was fast becoming acquainted with the verb - and its subsequent chill.

 _You didn’t deserve her tenderness before._ But she’d given it to him, anyway. Repeatedly. Now, when he wanted most to earn her smile, her amused little snorts, Molly shut him out. Her actions were impossible for him to comprehend without additional data but, somehow, Sherlock knew she had the right to keep him at arm's length.

“Sherlock…?”

“Can we…can I at least have a moment of your time,” he nodded in the general direction the juniors stationed across the lab, “in privacy?”

It was a gamble, his request. If she refused, Sherlock had no alternate strategy. He’d have to respect her authority here in regard to the lab. And in regard to matters such as…this. Matters he didn't routinely traffic in. He was bone-weary and had no idea what he was doing at Bart’s, why he needed to be with her before even speaking to his parents about Eurus.

Yes, he did.

“Alright,” Molly mumbled, “you can have it your way. Again.” She turned her back on him and addressed the juniors in a clear voice, “Tarique? Agatha? You can call it a night. And, well done, guys. You should be quite pleased. I know  _I_ am. We’ll finish up the slides next time we meet.”

That was Molly. No matter how knackered or angry, she always had a kind word for someone else. How many times had she offered one to him?

Christ, he was an arse for even coming here.

“Oh, ok!” Tarique grabbed his lab coat and bounded out the door before Molly finished. 

Good. The quicker the better.

But _Agatha…_ “Are you sure, Molly?” She eyed Sherlock with disapproval. “I can stay through the end of the shift. Get the rest of these done. Hate to leave you _alone_.” Her tone was solidarity, warning.

Sherlock twitched but focused all his attention on Molly, enduring Agatha’s implied censure in silence.

“That’s alright. I’m fine, Agatha. Thank you." She turned back to him, "Mr. Holmes is an old friend.”

“Mmm hmm…” She was unconvinced but made no attempt to question Molly further. Agatha did, however, pack up as slowly as the task would allow, clanging her way about the room and generally making as much noise as possible before exiting the lab.

Sherlock had to hand it to her, he’d used Agatha’s passive aggressive tactics once or twice before, hoping to get a rise out of Molly - a mock sigh or a reprimand. Now he’d settle for her putting less emphasis on the word “friend.”

Exactly _why_ he was unsure.

“Sherlock, I —“

“— Molly, I came here to— “

“Oh, sorry,” she apologized, “you go ahead.”

“No. No. What were you going to say?” She had no cause to apologize. Least of all to him.

Molly took a deep breath, exhaled. After what seemed like long minutes, she finally looked up, her normally animated face humorless, defeated.

He was struck with the sudden desire to cup her chin in his hands and run his thumb over her lips.

“I’m not doing this today - whatever it is,” she paused, “this conversation. Not here. Not now.”

The knot in Sherlock’s chest reasserted itself.

And so did his urge to touch her. “Oh. Yes. You’re right. Of course. You’re the doctor. We both need a modicum of sleep…”

“It hasn’t been the best day…for this…,” she motioned between them, her voice trailing off. 

At that moment, he gave serious consideration to hopping over the worktop. As tired as he was, he could do it, his six-foot frame clearing the distance between them easily.

“No, it’s not you…us,” Molly straightened, “not all of it, anyway.” Her voice was clearer, louder, as though she’d heard his thoughts and needed to stop him before he launched himself in her direction. “It’s…this is never a good day.”

“Ahhh.” He most certainly was an arse. “Your father.”

“How…? Yes, how did you know?”

“Molly, we’ve been acquainted with each other for nine years. Why do you think I’m always in the lab on March 4?”

“Really?”

Sherlock was saddened by the note of surprise in her response.

_Of course, she’s surprised. Do you blame her?_

He’d never engaged Molly in conversation about her father, never offered condolences. He simply showed up at Bart’s annually, on the 4th of March, requesting her assistance with evidence. Barring any current cases, he’d concoct experiments that required a lab environment rather than the kitchen table at 221b. Sherlock assumed Molly appreciated his efforts. Work was, he found, a more productive means of dealing with emotion - _any_ emotion.

At least that was his supposition _before_ Mary died.

Now, Sherlock wasn’t so sure. “I’m sorry, Molly Hooper.”

She nodded and mouthed the words _thank you._ They stood across from each other like that, not saying anything more. Beyond the doors, Sherlock heard Bart’s begin to stir. Soon, the daytime contingent of pathologists would descend upon lab, intruding on the companionable silence that had been restored between them, for however briefly.

As if an alarm had gone off, the hissing whirl of the lab’s cooling system kicked in. It punctuated the immediacy of the moment and roused him to action. He knew what he wanted to say to her now, known it all along. He forced his brain to piece coherent sentences together from the bits of free-radical emotion floating around his brain. Sherlock steadied himself, spreading his hands wide atop the worktop and took a deep breath.

“Molly, I —“

Her eyes went wide. “Oh my god! What happened to your hands?!” 


	4. Hands On Heart

Molly ached to touch Sherlock the moment she'd burst through the doors and, instead of seeing Greg Lestrade, found him standing in the lab.

Considerate, straightforward Greg. He was the kind of man Molly should’ve been attracted to, would’ve been attracted to. Before.

Before a lanky, indifferent loner with alabaster skin barged into her heart.

Yes, Sherlock always spoke truthfully - often tactlessly - but he was as far from uncomplicated as a man could get.

Further than that, even.

Molly crossed that distance now, _as a doctor_ she convinced herself, going up on tippy toes and stretching her small body over the worktop. She pulled Sherlock's battered hands toward her for closer examination.

He didn’t resist. A good sign, she thought.

Or bad.

In similar situations, he’d waved off the attention. Her worry. Now though, Sherlock met her halfway, palms up, in an uncharacteristic display of submission. His body language alarmed her. weakening her resolve to table their inevitable conversation. Both of them needed to be thinking clearly Or at least _one_ of them did.

She traced her index finger lightly over both of his thenars. Blood pooled there, at the base of his thumbs, swelling and discoloring the flesh. It would get worse before it got better, making it painful to flex the muscle. To play the violin. She lost herself in that thought, him struggling through his beloved Bach.

Pressing her palms flat against his, she let her fingers graze the sensitive skin of his wrists. How tiny her hands looked in his large, elegant ones. Even swollen, the phalanxes retained much of their fine, slender appearance. It suddenly struck her that resting in his hands was everything _she’d_ ever wanted. Fleetingly, Molly wondered how one healed a whole heart...

Time slowed as she watched his fingers wrap around hers.

“Hssssss!” Sherlock winced just as he applied pressure. Startled, Molly abruptly returned to the task literally at hand.

“Oh, sorry!” She didn’t look up at him. If she did, her eyes would give her away. Instead, she flipped his hands over and took in the damage. “Sherlock…,” she whispered. Angry red welts scored the almost translucent skin. His right one boasted two jagged cuts, the edges of which had already begun to clot although the centers were still quite raw.

Molly hated to let go but he needed medical assistance, not hand-holding. When did Sherlock ever need hand-holding?

_He always needed it._

John, Mrs. Hudson, Greg, Mycroft…  they could do the hand-holding.

 _He’s damn grown up despite all evidence to the contrary_ , she reminded herself and set about collecting supplies to heal his physical wounds: alcohol, cotton swabs and numbing salve from the first aid kit, needle, and catgut from her secret stash. The activity provided Molly with the space she needed to push worry aside and focus on the bravado that routinely landed him, and others, in harm’s way. _Mary..._

“Honestly, Sherlock,” she huffed, lining the supplies up on the worktop. “You fancy yourself a pirate but, seriously, you're more damsel in distress.” Molly motioned impatiently, a silent order for him to submit to her care. “What or who on earth did this to you?”

Sherlock didn’t answer immediately. She could feel his eyes on her as she cleaned the first cut. For some reason, his silence irritated her.

“Well?” Her tone was harsher than she intended.

“You.” The sound was so low, she looked up to be sure it came from him.

His eyes, usually on the hard offense - cataloging responses, recording minute details - locked with hers, their icy blue soft and unguarded. The corners creased slightly as he offered her a haggard smile.

They stayed like that, his hand in hers, staring at each other until Bart’s hospital-wide address system crackled to life paging someone, somewhere. Molly broke first, returning to the job of cleaning him up.

She grabbed the needle and thread. “This is going to hurt a bit…”

“Molly. There were cameras. In your kitchen —”

“— Greg told me. Well, he left me a message. Said he was coming down. Which reminds me, where is he? He should’ve been here by now.“

“I intercepted. Mycroft needs someone to look after him.”

She said nothing. The thought of Mycroft needing _anyone_ worried her. The thought of Greg being that anyone made her foolishly happy for some reason. She’d allow herself time to picture the myriad scenarios Sherlock’s statement conjured later. For now, she concentrated on his hand, puncturing the skin with her needle. If it hurt, Sherlock didn’t show it. Not unusual, given his current state. He must be exhausted.

“Three, four stitches is all it should take —“

“— _Mol-ly._ ”

“Then I’ll send you home with a bit of the topical we’ve stashed in the lab.“

“ _Mol-ly,_ please.”

God! If he would just stop saying her name in that way! Gentle. Uncertain.

“Sherlock. I…I know you were forced to say... _it._ Under duress. You don’t need to explain.” She snipped the thread on her first set of stitches and moved, efficiently, to the second gash.

“— But I’m going to —“

“-- I’m leaving for Hong Kong,” she blurted, in an effort to stop him from going further.

A beat.

“Ah. The white paper then?”

“Yep,” she replied, forcing her voice to sound bright.

“Congratulations. It’s an exceptional piece of research, Molly.”

“You’ve read it then?”

“You sound surprised. I should be offended.” His mocking was meant to tease.

“Yes. No. It’s just…” She trailed off. Would he ever stop surprising her? He made it difficult to be angry with him, to want to put space and time between them.

“Of course I read it. Twice.”

The second injury required only two stitches. Molly finished the sutures and let go of his hand, instantly missing the weight of it.

“Yes, well, thank you. I’m just first alternate but —“

“-- You’re not “just” anything _Mol-ly Hooper_.”

The sentiment in his tone went straight to her heart. She rushed to save him from saying more, to save herself from hearing more. “You’re good as new now,” she smiled, knowing full well both hands, but especially his right, hurt like hell, numbing gel or no.

“So they are...” Sherlock flexed his hands tentatively and blanched with the effort. His legs buckled underneath him and Molly watched in horror as he disappear behind the high worktop.

“Jesus! Sherlock!” If she wasn’t so short, Molly would’ve jumped over the worktop to reach him. Racing around to the other side seemed to take her forever. Once there, she slid down by his side. Sherlock was conscious but slouching over, his long frame nearly sprawled out across the tile floor.

Molly hoisted him back up, forcing him to lean against her. The angle made her slightly taller than him.

Sighing, Sherlock sank into her shoulder and closed his eyes.

“Damn,” she fumbled for her mobile, realizing she’d left it on the counter. Their position made it awkward for her to reach inside Sherlock’s coat pocket to retrieve his. She needed to call John, needed to get Sherlock into a cab and home to Baker Street. Once there, Mrs. Hudson could administer tea and good biscuits. John would make sure Sherlock stayed in bed for the next week.

And yet she could think of nothing but staying there on the floor, bearing his weight and listening to his shallow breathing, indefinitely.

After too brief a moment, he spoke.

Eyes still closed, he murmured into her shoulder, “What I said, Molly…I meant it.”

She inhaled, held it. Turning her head, Molly pressed her lips gently against his temple and exhaled, “I know. I heard you.” Her voice was weak, these last hours pummeling her as much as they had him.

Sherlock grunted in amusement, a sound Molly heard him make so many times before upon reaching a particularly satisfying deduction, “I’m told by John that admissions such as mine are generally met with enthusiasm, not abject...despair."

He looked up at her with those piercing blue eyes, laying himself completely at her mercy. It was, Molly knew, an unfamiliar feeling for him. And her heart burst for it.

“Sherlock, I meant what I said, too, that I lo —“

“— Oh, there we go then,” he interrupted, employing a trace of his usual smugness.  
  
Molly wasn't having it. She'd come this far, she wasn't going to let Sherlock deflect as he'd so masterfully done throughout their friendship. “But I have to live with _me_. Sherlock. I’ve had this in my heart for nine years. Had you in my heart for nine years,” She heard herself saying the words, the sentences as comforting as Sherlock’s body against hers, “When I was alone, I loved you. When I was with other men, I loved you. When you treated me horribly I loved you.” She felt his body stiffen with guilt. “I hated you too, but I loved you. When you disappointed me, I loved you —“

“ — I’ve been getting a lot of that lately,” he said ruefully. But he didn’t look away. He took in everything she said.

“You’ve had to live with this,” she motioned between them, “your realization for, what, ten hours?”

“Eleven hours and forty-seven minutes,” he corrected her.

Molly couldn’t help it. She laughed so boisterously she snorted for the first time days. Sherlock laughed with her, flashing a hearty smile, his blue eyes regaining some of their potency. In years past, his genuine response would’ve thwarted her resolve to stay the course of friendship. She was older now. Her skin had thickened. She wanted him, but not when his sister had forced his hand, quite literally by the looks of his wounds, to admit he loved her. She didn't cave to the boyish impertinence that generally softened John's scoldings. It was worth the pain of right now to have Sherlock be an adult, ready to face his feelings - and hers - because he wanted to do so.

That Sherlock wasn't here tonight, might never materialize. But she couldn't hold onto this version, as broken and charming as he was. This Sherlock was too vulnerable to think clearly about a set of emotions he hadn't thought about in his nearly four decades on earth.

She soldiered on, “Yes, well… for once in your life, you’ve encountered something you can’t manipulate your way out of, Sherlock. We're not a case for you to solve. I'm not an experiment or client.”

He blinked at her and Molly could see his mind working, unaccustomed to this kind of emotional distress. She felt sorry for him. Achingly so. He’d gone a lifetime never feeling the acute pain of romantic heartbreak. He was out of his depths.

 _Good._ He needed to take his knocks like the _ordinary people_. “You’ve got to feel your way ‘round it, Sherlock," she shrugged. "And you can’t do that in an overnight. And I need time. I need breathing room —“

“ — Molly, neither the air nor the population density of Hong Kong are conducive for —“

“— Alright, Sherlock,” she cut him a sharp look, her tone dripping in mock displeasure. “I can see you’re well enough to pour into a cab.” Molly gave him a playful shove and got to her feet. Offering him a hand, she asked, “Where’s John?”

“Baker Street.” Sherlock took her assistance and pulled himself up to his full height. He held her hand in his and Molly made no move to protest. “Rosie spent the day with Mrs. Hudson so they’ve camped out there.”

Molly nodded. “OK. Let’s get you home to bed.”

Sherlock raised a brow and flashed his tight-lipped grin. The suggestion in it was one that, prior to tonight, would’ve been unimaginable coming from him. Still was. 

 _Because_ of tonight, Molly knew Sherlock was dead tired and beyond ready for sleep, nothing more, despite the beat of his pulse in her hand. Regardless of her desire to accompany him up the stairs of 221b.

If she didn’t let go soon, she just might do it... 

The doors to the lab swung open. “Oh, Miss Hooper…sorry! I didn’t know anyone was still here. Thought the overnight had already gone up to the lockers.”

Molly slipped from Sherlock’s grasp but didn’t look away from him. “Oh, James. Hi. Just wrapping things up and then I'm taking Mr. Holmes home to bed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell, you guys! My romance novels are showing! Oh, the angst!  
> Perhaps I should've dropped these two into the Regency & let them work out their feelings amidst drawing rooms & society balls LOL!
> 
> Thank You Thank You Thank you for reading/commenting/kudo-ing. 
> 
> Stay tuned! I can't wait to see what happens next!


	5. The Data Makes No Sense

_“Molly. Please!”_

He was dreaming. He knew this because somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice kept repeating _“I love you I love you I love you…“_ Molly’s voice. But the image behind his eyelids was of an explosion, running on a concurrent loop. He’d fought against sleep for hours but finally lost the battle shortly after leaving St. Bart’s.

Sherlock hated dreaming.

The sweet oblivion he received from shooting up was one he could rely on. The visions were phantasmagoric in the extreme, making even the most harrowing of them easy to ride, enjoy - or at least get lost in. When he was high, his subconscious created an animated short or a Buñuel for him to watch. Nothing was real enough for him to _feel._ He was just an observer even when he was the star. 

By contrast, dreams took the very same data from his subconscious and ran it through the filter of raw emotion, his heart. Every frame, every word refracted through the prism of his fear, shame, sorrow. _Love_. In dreams, Sherlock was forced to participate in the narrative to the point of feeling pain. 

And it frightened him.

_“Sherlock?”_

Molly wore the spectrum of Sherlock's emotions in those dreams. He was ashamed of his disregard for her, treatment he convinced himself was ultimately, _selflessly,_ for her benefit. He couldn’t outrun the sadness he felt every time he used her flat, as a bolthole, and discovered telltale signs of another man’s presence. He feared he’d made a grievous mistake, hours ago, when he uttered that second I love you. He couldn’t take it back and it might’ve destroyed whatever this was between them, the long-established distance that felt closer to intimacy than anything he’d ever had with a woman.

And he loved her.

_“Sherlock.”_

She whispered his name in that way, the last hard consonants floating breathlessly from her mouth. _Sherlohhhhck_. He liked that most of all, when she said his name. Even when she was angry with him. Softer than even his best dressing gown. And he was going to tell her just that. Even if it was only in a dream. Reach out to her, hold her, tell her —

“Sherlock! Sherlock, what are you doing? Wake up would you!” Molly shoved at him, her hand slipping past his shoulder and connecting squarely with his nose.

“OUCH!” Sherlock’s eyes flew open as his head bounced against the taxi’s back window. Instinctively, he felt for his nose, forgetting his stiff hands, the stitches, the raw cuts. “What’d you do that for?" The pain in his hands throbbed. "Owww!”

“You ok, Miss?” The taxi driver took his eyes off the road for a second at the commotion coming from his back seat.

“Is _she_ okay?” Sherlock whined, “ _I’m_ the one being assaulted.” He rested his head back again and shut his eyes. “I’m seeing stars for god’s sake.”

Molly ignored him, “I’m fine Aarti. Thank you.”

“OK. You just let me know. I can pull over and dump him out if he gets fresh again, Miss.”

“Thank you. He’s mostly all mouth and no trousers.”

Sherlock turned and fixed Molly with one glittering eye. “One day, Miss Hooper, I shall prove you wrong.”

“I'd like to see you try it.” she countered, her words clipped and her face hard.

He knew when to leave well enough alone.

But he couldn't.

"I...I think you dislodged something," he sulked. "I think I need a _doctor._ "

Molly kneeled up on the seat, hovering above his face and scowled. If Aarti could take a sharp corner right about now, he thought, this whole business would effectively be taken out of both their hands and placed squarely with more agreeable body parts.

“Move your hand,” she swatted at him, “let me see —“

“— Owww! Clearly, a bedside manner isn't required in the morgue.”

She set her fingers roughly along the bridge of his nose, avoiding eye contact. After an abnormally thorough examination of the damage, she asked, “What were you doing anyway?”

“I was _trying_ for a little sympathetic companionship,” he muttered, “Thanks for queering my pitch.”

“In the back of a cab?” Molly replied. She gave him one more - unnecessary - pinch before withdrawing her hands from his face. “You're fine. And you’ve been watching too much porn if you think you've got any chance of a backseat quickie.”

He wanted to tell her, wanted to explain to her about his dream. But he couldn't. She'd made it abundantly clear she wasn't interested in hearing more from him tonight.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them as the cab sped along at an annoyingly legal rate of speed. Sherlock focused his attention out the window and silently cursed Aarti’s cautious driving.

“This isn’t the way to Baker Street,” he harped. “Where are we going?”

The question was rhetorical. He knew full well. And he wasn't at all unhappy about it.

“Clapham,” she responded flatly.

Several minutes passed before she spoke. “Why’d you let us get all the way to Baker Street without telling me about your flat?” Molly didn’t wait for his response, launching full throttle into her lecture, “Had to find out from the boys opening the shop that Mrs. Hudson’s camped out at Mrs. Turner’s until the investigation and reno are finished! And John picked Rosie up from Mrs. Turner's _Baker Street_ \- not 221b! - for obvious reasons! What were you going to do, then? Huh? Just crawl back up to your flat and sleep amongst the debris? Honestly, Sherlock, you have no concept —”

“— Well gee whizz Miss Hooper,” he turned toward her and drawled, mocking her irritation in his American cowboy accent, “I said 'Baker Street'...had a might bit more on my mind than providing exact longitude and latitude. But you rest assured, the next time I find out I have a sister, watch four - no, wait, five! - people die and nearly loose my best friend, my brother and the woman I love I’ll be right sure to inform you of flat upgrades first. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

_He'd said too much._

Bloody hell, this night! He didn’t mean to sound petulant. He meant to right his wrong. The dull ache in his chest returned, as did the desire to reach for her. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and turned back toward the window. Molly annoyed him during the regular course of their friendship. She saw too much. Of him. It was unnerving. 

If this was love, he couldn’t understand why John and she rushed, headlong, into it so often. The data made no sense.

Sherlock concentrated on the brightening sky as they crossed the Chelsea Bridge. London was waking up to a light drizzle as he was going to sleep in a thunderstorm.  
  
“I’m taking you home,” Molly spoke softly, after a time, as if she didn’t want to disturb him.”It’s too crowded for you to stay at the neighbor's with Mrs. Hudson.”

“Yes," he drawled and looked squarely at her. The corner of his mouth kicked up, "I have it on good authority that Mrs. Turner’s got several married… _flatmates_.”

“And Mrs. Hudson is a former exotic dancer with an Aston Martin and a lodger with a penchant for playing pirate.” She didn't fully commit to her smile. Instead, she leaned forward to address the cabbie. “Aarti, I’d like to introduce you to the great Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective and sometimes pirate,” she turned back and he was grateful for the light tone of her voice. “You were barely awake, Sherlock, when Aarti helped load you into the cab —“

“— Damsel in distress is sounding alarmingly more accurate,” he grunted, remembering her admonishment from earlier at Bart's, but couldn't keep his smirk from widened into a full grin.

“Left turn just here, Aarti, then up on the right. Thank you.”

“Yep. You got it. Miss.” The cab pulled in front of a neat, terraced Georgian. As they exited, Aarti leaned out the window and motioned back in Sherlock’s direction, “You gonna be ok with him, Miss?”

Sherlock let out an exasperated sigh, slamming the cab door behind him harder than necessary. “Need I remind you that it was ME who was assaulted by HER?”

Aarti ignored his griping and raised a brow at Molly.

“You mean the damsel in pirate’s clothing?” She nodded toward Sherlock, “He doth protest too much. He’ll be back to his old self after a good kip.”

Entwining her arm through his, she led the way up the walk. Sherlock felt an unfamiliar flutter in his stomach as they reached the door. Apprehension? Anticipation? _Odd._ He’d been in Molly’s flat countless times before, although rarely with her there. He made it a point to use it as a bolthole only when he knew her to be working or on holiday. When he could be alone amongst her things. Sherlock wasn’t quite sure why it was important that she not be around… only that he felt more comfortable about sleeping in her bed, using her bath linens, when he knew she wouldn’t be there.

She looked up at him with an almost smile again. As knackered as he was, he could think of nothing beyond coaxing a full grin from her. What would it be like if he stopped right here, at her door, and kissed her? Not on the cheek as he’d done numerous times before. Those chaste pecks were delivered quickly, efficiently, in an effort to pry himself loose, to save himself from drowning and pulling her down with him. He was an addict always in search of the next fix.

_She deserves better._

But Christ if Sherlock didn’t want to hear her gasp in surprise as he pulled her to him, feel her relax against his body and tell her…tell her he was sorry. And not just for the last twelve hours.

_Tell her he loved her._

As if she’d heard his thoughts, Molly stepped behind him and gave him gentle push through the door. “Go. Up. A kip, a good kick in the arse and - for better or for worse - you’ll be yourself again.”

He wasn't sure that was the most advantageous of outcomes.

 

Sherlock knew Molly’s flat almost as well as he knew Baker Street. He’d been surprised by the tidy modernity of it - crisp white and warm charcoal gray softened by touches of violet and smoke blue. And charmed by her collection of rocks, lined atop the mantle, and shadowboxes of taxidermy insects lining the hallway.

Miss Hooper was practical, sentimental, and a woman with her own means.

_And undressing on the other side of her bedroom door._

The window for taking subsequent actions based upon that data had closed. Probably for the better. For their _friendship._ He needed to erase the image of Molly kicking off her trousers, walking around in her plain cotton knickers.

She had eleven pairs of white, four pink and one incredibly suggestive black lace pair shoved in the back of her chest of drawers.

_He knew every inch of her flat._

He rushed to occupy his mind. And his hands. He shouted louder than needed in her direction, “Shall I make us some tea?"

Molly mumbled from behind the door but didn’t come out.

“Right, then,” he sighed and went to put the kettle on.

In the kitchen.

The dull light of rainy London did nothing to soften the blow of being in her kitchen. By reflex, he looked up at the far corner, to where a camera offered him a full view of her face just hours earlier. The entire set-up had since been disconnected back at Sherrinford. Greg arranged for the units themselves to be removed in the morning.

It _was_ morning, Sherlock reminding himself.

“ _Mourning,_ more accurately,” he murmured.

“What’s that?”

Molly reappeared, barefoot and sporting a plain long-sleeved t-shirt atop a pair of floral pajama bottoms. Her face was scrubbed and her hair loose.

And he was never so grateful for a worktop between them.

“I was…a…,” he fumbled, the blood completely draining from his brain. “Em... _Hmmm?_ ”

“Sherlock. It’s 7:15 in the morning. We both need sleep.” Molly pointed back down the hallway from where she'd just emerged. “No tea," she ordered, “Bed. Now.”

"That's awfully presumptuous of you, Miss Hooper," he deadpanned, hoping to infuse a bit of levity into the situation and give himself a moment to... collect parts of his anatomy that were responding quite robustly to her unintended suggestion.  

He was in no position to walk the short distance without drawing her suspicion. Nor was he in any position to entertain such thoughts. At least not consciously.

At least not now.

_Not after what you did to her._

“Molly,” he started, paused, spread his hands on the counter. They’d been in this position before, earlier this evening. And she’d been rational throughout. In the past, when they'd sparred, she’d yell ferociously or cut him with a much-deserved remark. Or slapped him. 

This time, she took great pains not to hurt him. He watched her anger bloom, back at Bart’s and in the taxi, expected her to rail against him. Welcomed the punishment. Instead, she informed him that she wasn’t discussing the three words wedged between them. Not until they were _both_ thinking and speaking clearly.

That’s when it struck him: Molly was well and truly upset with him. For real and most likely forever.

No, not upset. 

_Hurt._

Tonight had hurt her.

 _He'd_ hurt her. Again. 

“You’re right. Tea would be a bad idea now,” he hesitated, wanting to stay in the kitchen with her, to somehow cleanse it of the damage done. “I’ll just go clean up. Thank you, Molly Hooper, for letting me stay here... _tonight_.”

“ _Today._ Sherlock. It’s already today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry guys: I'm riding this angst train to the end!  
> Exactly which station it'll pull into is another story ;)  
> These two were made for gut-punches!  
> Enjoy and stay tuned...


	6. Normal, Nice, Decent...Aftermath

Molly had been away for three weeks and home for little over twelve hours. Jet lag was descending quickly as she rode the Tube from Barbican to Baker Street. John’s text took great pains to give her an out tonight, bless him. 

> _UR probably knackered after trip & Bart’s. Don’t feel obliged 2 attend reno party. But we’d love 2 see u. ALL of us -John_

She’d promised Mrs. Hudson. No one disappointed a landlady capable of taking down six foot tall smack heads with nothing more than a cuppa. It warmed her to know such a woman even existed and that Molly could call her a friend.

They’d left the door off the street unlocked for her. From the foyer Molly clearly heard laughter and the pop! of a Champagne cork. She wasn’t far off when she’d called Sherlock a lodger rather than a tenant. Molly couldn’t recall a time when the door to his flat was ever closed. Baker Street boasted a special kind of congenial, _open-door privacy_ where the flat at the top of the stairs was concerned.

As if to prove the point, music floated down to where she stood, the sound confident and effortless. Like the musician who made it. The thought of Sherlock’s hands mostly healed and playing his beloved violin made Molly smile. She heard him restored in the notes, his right hand relaxed as it drew the bow. The crook of his left thumb maintaining its curve as the fingers applied just the right amount of pressure to each string.

A sudden vision of those slender, pale phalanxes on skin assaulted her, the intensity of it knocking Molly back to the wall. She closed her eyes until the image faded and her heart slowed. But she hadn’t let go of the memory since that night, that morning he’d slept in her bed.

She held onto it firmly with both hands.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

 _Tea most certainly wasn’t a good idea._ Molly seriously considered it, however, if only to keep him puttering about in her kitchen. Sherlock stood in the exact spot she’d occupied only hours before, his enormous black Belstaff hanging open, hair a bit ruffled, hands sporting the angry bruises of a boxer rather than a genius. Although, he had a tendency toward uncooperative behavior, to say the least. As battered as he looked, he restored a sense of rightness to the space. A slightly mad priest who’s mere presence could exorcise evil spirits - while fiddling around with the kettle.

Sherlock came around to her side of the worktop and paused, as though about to speak. His eyes, normally so active, were soft and ringed with exhaustion. His smile forced. He nodded once and walked down the hallway, heeding her instructions to ready for bed.

She should’ve said something but couldn’t find the words, the release code, to retract her order. To make him stay.

Instead, Molly watched him go in silence, her unhappiness mirrored in the lines on his face. She’d been on the receiving end of that expression before and it broke her heart as much now as it did then.

Much like their first meeting at Bart’s, Molly remembered absolutely everything about the day they spent together solving crimes. He’d made mention of her engagement ring. She’d rambled on about normal and nice and decent Tom and their normal and nice and decent life together - complete with dog. She wanted to scream, tell Sherlock she loved _him_ , not normal and nice and decent anyone! She fought back tears and anger at her own emotional cowardice. At his emotional impotence.

Sherlock saved her from making her declaration of love, that day at least. He listened patiently to her nervous recitation of “life with Tom,” his face muscles flexed in the general approximation of a smile. Those iridescent eyes crinkled a bit at the corners. His mouth kicked upward a touch. His nearness enveloped her, blocking a draft from the entry door. She recalled the faint scent of his posh soap when he bent down to wish her well. _“I hope you’ll be very happy, Mol-ly Hooper. You deserve it.”_

The brush of his nose against her skin, the press of his lips on her cheek, were whisper light. It was the most melancholy congratulatory kiss in the history of mankind.

Those agonizing minutes were the best part of her engagement. She let Tom keep the dog.

The muffled roar of the shower brought Molly back to the present and the all too immediate realization that just beyond the closed door to the loo was a man she’d dreamt about for the better part of 9 years.

Not _a_ man. _The_ man. The only man that mattered.

And this wasn’t the scenario she’d imagined. Ever.

What woman in her right mind over-analyses an _I love you_ from the one man she’s loved for close to a decade? “Two _I love yous_ ,” she corrected herself, from a man who admitted, just hours ago, that he’d meant what he said.

“You do, Molly Hooper” she muttered. “if you know what’s good for you. Especially when those three words come from Sherlock Holmes.” She was a professional woman with a healthy, if uninspiring, dating life and a conference to prep for. He was a crime solving hobbyist with substance abuse issues.

_Addict._

She did know what was good for her.

But Molly wanted what was bathing just down the hall.

She was completely horrible. To even consider using his forced confession against him, to take some measure of physical intimacy from it - just for tonight - to bandage her own wounds, was unconscionable.

His voice still rattled around her heart. _“If it’s true then say it anyway…”_ His willful blindness cut more deeply than any other blade he’d wielded over the course of their friendship. Just one night together would stanch her bleeding. She didn’t care about tomorrow or the next day. How could he not know? Everyone knew. Hell, she’d even tipped her hand in front of Mycroft, for goodness sakes, asking after Sherlock’s intimate knowledge of the naked woman on the slab.

Still, she wanted him. All of him. Even the addict, god help her. Sherlock wasn’t the sum of the parts he allowed the ordinary people to see. He was hidden away deeper than that imperious cover. She saw it. Or was she delusional?

No. She wasn’t. John. Mary. Mrs. Hudson. Greg. They saw Sherlock, too. And they loved him. They couldn’t all be delusional.

He meant that second _I love you._

Molly may have been wrong about other men, but she’d never been wrong about Sherlock. Watching him was like reading a book. Everything was right there in black and white. His facial expressions spoke in full sentences. His body language told stories. It was remarkable to her that John saw very little, relying instead on his gut feelings - the soldier’s intuition - rather than the plain-as-day evidence.

She heard every nuance of his tone. She’d heard the truth in his second _I love you_. He’d known. Sherlock knew she loved him. Sherlock also knew he loved her. He just didn’t understand how to live with what he’d finally admitted. And Molly couldn’t make him want the same things she wanted from that second _I love you._

_That’s not how it works._

He’d have to figure it out for himself. So here she stood listening to the water run, imagining it traveling over the plains of Sherlock's body. And feeling like a traitor to their friendship. She should be readying the sofa. The least Molly could offer him was her bed - a silent act of contrition for wanting to be in it with him.

_God, she wanted him, deep in her bones._

“Stop it.” Molly let the ache linger one more moment before walking into her bedroom and fetching the linens. Then she let it go - as she had numerous times before. As she knew she would again and again.

The door to the loo flew open as she made her way back toward the sofa. The rush of steam and _maleness_ surprised her and the linens toppled from her arms.

“Oh! Shit!”

“—Molly! So sorry! Here, let me help you.”

“No, it’s fine I got it. See?” As she straightened, her eyes inadvertently roamed his pajama bottoms, the fine cotton fabric clinging to parts of his anatomy that were not completely dry. The hard length of his tibia, the graceful curve of his vastus medialis. The tautness of his adductors…

She jerked her head up, concentrating on his face and praying it was the steam making her cheeks feel warm. Tiny droplets tipped the ends of Sherlock's eyelashes. Rivulets from his damp hair slid down his face, collecting briefly in the well of his clavicle before slipping under the collar of that gray t-shirt he always slept in.

 _His clavicle._ Of the parts of his body set off to glorious effect by the damp cloth, it was Sherlock’s clavicle that made her falter, “I, em, I’m getting the linens. Hi! How…How was your…Hi!”

He didn’t say anything for an impossibly long moment. He just stood there, looking into her.

“Hello _Mol-ly_ Hooper,” he breathed, “What are you doing with the linens?”

The heat surrounded her, fogging her brain. “What am I…what? Oh! The linens. I’m making up the sofa.“

“Oh.”

Was that disappointment in his voice? Surely he…he would’ve kissed her or indicated…by now? He was a man, for goodness sakes. What was wrong with him that he didn’t try wheedling his way out of the conversation they needed to have and, instead, shagging her senseless? Like an _ordinary_ man!

“I’m kipping there, Sherlock, so you can… You need more sleep than I do considering…“ She trailed off, unable to complete the thought.

The full weight of his gaze fell on her, heavier than normal. Molly wondered what would happen if she dropped the linens once more and reached for him instead.

“I can’t take advantage of you like that, Molly,” his voice low and heartbreakingly sincere. Had he read her thoughts?

_Dear god, she welcomed his transgression!_

Couldn’t the man who saw everything see that?!

Apparently, no.

An ambulance siren whined somewhere. Neither of them moved as the sound peaked, then trailed off, lost to the morning rush.

Molly exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding and let the linens fall. She reached for his face, stretching up on tippy toes.

Sherlock met her in the space between, the invisible demarcation line neither had crossed in their nine year acquaintance. His hands, strong and sure even after the battering they took, clasped around her hips and steadied her. His head coming down to hers.

And cracking against the bridge of her nose.

“Oooowwwch!” Pain jolted through her entire body. She crumpled to the floor, eyes closed and one fist balled up in his shirt. The other, feeling blindly for something to wipe her watering eyes.

“Molly! Are you…I’m so sorry…I…”

Sherlock knelt next to her, cupping her chin in his hand to look up her nose. “I’m so sorry!” Worry replaced the downright sensual tone he’d used moments before. “You…you seemed to be losing your balance. I tried to keep you from tripping over!"

“I think I’m going to vomit…” she gasped and let go of his shirt, not knowing if she was concussed or simply sick from embarrassment.

He sat her upright, rubbing her back in firm, almost painful circles. “I’m so sorry…”

“Sherlock," she breathed. "Sherlock! You can stop with the back rub. I’m queasy, not suffering from hypothermia.” She immediately regretted her annoyance.

“Oh. Yes. Of course. Sorry, again. I…I…” He looked at her as if she’d just kicked his dog. Sherlock put his hands to his knees and stood up. He was so impossibly tall from Molly's vantage point. So impossibly out of her reach now. “I’ll, em…do you need a glass of water?" he ventured, more mother hen than the cocksure arsehole he usually deployed in situations requiring a gentle touch. Rosie was working wonders on her Uncle Sherlock. "Ice for your nose? Tea? Want _anything?”_

_Did she want anything?_

Yes.

“No.” As an afterthought, she added, "I just need to get some sleep.”

 

Molly lay inches from Sherlock, listening to his breathing. Clearly, he wasn’t suffering the same moral dilemmas from the day’s events as she. His inhales were deep, the exhales slow,.They may as well be continents apart instead of sharing the same blanket.

After convincing him she wasn’t concussed, he pleaded with her to take the bed. She agreed, but only if Sherlock slept there with her. Now, about an hour after they’d gone to bed, Molly was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Forcing herself not to roll over and watch him sleep.

Sherlock’s back was to her, the position pulling his t-shirt over the lean lines of his shoulders and torso. If she rolled onto her side, she’d want to mold her body to him, tuck her knees behind his and bury her nose into the nape of his neck. Just hold him, nothing more.

Molly rolled over.

It occurred to her that she’d never, ever felt Sherlock’s hair. Not even when he was in hospital and barely conscious, a bullet wound to the chest. The thick locks weren’t nearly as unruly as they’d been when he was younger. Middle-aged respectability was closing in on the younger Mr. Holmes but hadn’t yet completely tamed his hair. Or him. She gave a silent prayer neither would ever fully succumb.

Some daylight evaded the drawn shade. A soft shaft of light hit the side of his head, illuminating some coppery strands hidden among the darker sable ones. She wondered what Sherlock’s parents looked like, who he favored. Would his hair recede in aristocratic propriety like his brother’s? Would it remain just as full and go white in his distinguished old age?

“Christ sakes,” she cursed softly. She needed sleep and the lounge was the only place she’d get it. Molly kicked off the bedclothes, grabbed her mobile from the side table and gave herself stern warning not to look back at his face as she left the room.

She looked back.

She’d never seen Sherlock so serene. She’d seen him self-satisfied, high, barely conscious, over-caffeinated, melancholy, annoyed - always so annoyed - and, since Rosie’s arrival, mostly contented. But never serene, like he’d finally found the room in that mind palace of his where all the emotions were set to rights.

It was solace and seduction to her and Molly needed to get the hell out of the bedroom before she caved to both.

She set her mobile alarm for 3 pm and tunneled under the linens she’d left next to the sofa. Six hours or so of sleep should take the edge off. Then she’d get up and order them something from the Indian down the street. There wasn’t much of a chance Sherlock would wake before then. He was out cold.

Meanwhile, she was burning up. Every inch of her skin tingled, begging her brain to go back to bed, back to Sherlock. Her nipples hardened in an effort to force the decision. “Don’t listen to them, brain. Please,” she pleaded aloud.

_God! He’s right there._

“Shut up,” Molly grumbled to no one. She glued herself to the sofa, snapping her eyes shut and squeezing her legs together. A familiar flutter deep in her belly accompanied the slick heat blooming between her thighs. She heard her breathing, loud and heavy, in her own ears and pulled the blanket up over her head. Then she allowed the scenes to flash, one after the other, as her hands slid down to undo the little drawstring at her waist.

There was no time to linger over her breasts, teasing each nipple as she usually imagined Sherlock doing. Molly needed quick release and then, sleep. “Damn,” she breathed. Had she been thinking clearly instead of mooning over his hair, she would’ve grabbed her second-best vibrator from its emergency location between the mattress and the spring. But it was on his side of the bed. That would’ve been some pretty quick talking, explaining what she was rooting around for, had she woken him. Best just to do it manually and get it over with. Quieter, too.

Her hands slipped between skin and waistband, then over the ruffled edge of the black lace knickers she’d donned. Molly convinced herself that she hadn’t worn them in hopes of Sherlock seeing...touching them. They were for _her._ The fine lace just made her feel pretty. And the satiny ribbon thong tugging up her arse made Molly want to sprint to the bedroom, dive under the bedclothes and tease the soft bulge in Sherlock's own pajamas. She imagined settling between his legs, nudging with her nose and caressing with the tip of her tongue, until his hard-on strained the thin cotton.

And he begged her to stop. _To never stop._

“Oh god,” Molly moaned. The fingers of her right hand circled the hard nub of her clit, bringing her close to orgasm already. She slowed down and gasped for air. She needed to come but she didn’t want to completely rush the gorgeous movie flickering in her brain. She massaged the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh with her left thumb, applying a bit of pressure to the adductors and sending tiny shockwaves to her core. Molly's thighs rubbed together in an effort to wring more of that pleasure and pain from her hands.

Her head buzzed with the sound of Sherlock whimpering _Mol-ly_ in his way, caressing the L’s as though he was lathing them with his tongue. She tugged at his waistband, springing his cock free. God, she knew it would be glorious. Long and lean, the delicious tip already slick. She cradled him alongside her throat, his velvety foreskin gliding over her neck as she buried her face into his lower abdomen. She felt the pulse of Sherlock’s cock in her own carotid artery, his hands tangled in her hair trying to coax her mouth back down to his head. She grinned, imagining her lips sucking at the pale skin of his stomach, ignoring his earnest request. She wanted to taste that beautiful, hard length of him but rushing it would be a travesty... He has to beg for it, just a little, while she sets her teeth along the ridges of his pelvic bone, buries her nose into his navel. His cock swells between her breasts, leaving a bead of pre-cum down the center of her chest. Molly runs an index finger along her sternum, collecting some of the wetness. She's wanted to taste that saltiness since the day they first met. She hovers over him and sucks the finger between her lips. Sherlock cries out but still she won't relent. She buries a satisfied smile into his skin. Her scientist's brain can't help catalogue the anomaly: epidermis that shines cool as marble but feels so warm against her mouth.

_Mol-ly please..._

She wants nothing more than to swallow Sherlock whole, slowly circling his head with her tongue, pushing him to the edge with her lips and hands. Oh...and then Sherlock's sliding down her throat. On more than one occasion, he's caught her daydreaming in the lab, rendered almost speechless by the slim cut of his trousers. His tailor makes it so difficult for her to concentrate on even the fascinating new Zika blood and serum protocols! The front placket of the fine cloth is cut to within an inch of decency. She's almost positive she's spied him with a hard-on. Maybe it's her wishful thinking. He gets very excited when an errant molecule leads to a deduction. His slow, controlled breathing does have an erotic edge of satisfaction to it... 

Molly speeds up her self-ministrations. All of her senses are tuned into this fantasy - sight, touch, taste. Even her sense of smell conjures his posh soap - scotch, wood smoke and sandalwood. Triple-milled and probably delivered to Baker Street in a box so simple, you know it's expensive. A moan, as resonant as his speaking voice, escapes Imaginary Sherlock's mouth. The corners of his plush bottom lip disappear into the most lickable creases. She traces his Cupid's bow with her tongue before slipping inside his mouth. The very thought quickens her pulse, pushing Molly perilously close to screaming aloud. "Not here. Not now," she cautions herself. The possibility of getting caught though.

How lovely he looked, panting beneath her, a thin sheen of sweat on that glowing skin, the veins in his arms pumped with blood. His cock, darker than the rest of him, hard and flat on his abdomen. His blue eyes gone almost navy, the pupils so wide now. Need. Want. All because of her.

In her frenzy, Molly accidentally kicks the blankets off the sofa. Christ! She's so close to coming now! if Sherlock walked in on her, she wouldn’t care. She’d relish it! Let him see what he’d done to her, pajamas down around her knees, fingers covered in her wet. She'd beg him to fuck her out of her misery. This wasn’t about love. She's too far gone to think anymore on his _I love yous_. She slips two fingers inside her pussy in desperation. The muscles contract, greedy for something fuller, something longer. She wants him so deep inside her but can't find the release. She rubs the heel of her hand against her swollen clit. Not good enough. She needs Sherlock's mouth between her legs, lapping at the copious wetness she's producing. She can hear him sigh in astonishment, feel his breath tickle the coarse curls there. _"So wet..."_   Yes. She was. Damn him, he always did this to her. She'd slept with her share of men but only imaginary Sherlock could sop her up like this. She hated him for it.

Molly loved him for it. Sometimes twice in one night.

She writhes a bit as some of that silky heat slips over her perineum and glides between her arse cheeks. The thought of Sherlock's tongue traveling that same secret path has her panting. In her mind, though, she's not ready to give him what he wants, what they both want. Molly's waited this long. Sherlock's turn for agony - and she knows he's in it by his erratic breathing, his fingertips bruising the insides of her thighs. Instead, she rises up and straddles his thigh, the quad muscle smooth and hard against her mound.

The coil in Molly's belly tightens with the image, the _feel_ of him between her legs. She jerks her hips upward seeking him. In her mind, she'd wrapped both hands around Sherlock's gorgeous length, thumbs working him with a bit of gentle pressure on the swollen, glistening tip, making him breathe her name over and over. She grinds her clit into his thigh and moans. The delicate lace of her knickers now sopping wet, the combination of raw fabric and his hard quad muscle creating an intense friction against her entire seam. Those lovely, slender phalanxes of his grip the lace waistband, wrapping the fabric around his fists and yanking upward. The thin ribbon along her backside pulls taut between her arse cheeks, sliding over the tight little bud of her most secret opening just as he thrust his quad harder into her clit. Cum pours out of Sherlock's cock, hot and sticky, a never-ending eruption coating her fingers in musky wetness as she rides his thigh to her own climax...

Molly turned her head into the pillow and came, the force of her orgasm shaking loose from so deep inside her, it sounded like a sob.

Nine hours later, she woke up to an empty flat.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Those twenty-seven hours between Sherlock’s _I love you_ and her waking to an empty flat seemed a lifetime ago. And so fresh in her mind, she could still feel the grip of that orgasm, self-induced though it was as if it'd just happened here in the hallway of Baker Street. And the three she’d given herself afterward, wrapped in the sheets of her bed and surrounded by his lingering scent, were as intense.

After the third, wracking wave of pleasure, Molly was finally ready to get up and pack for Hong Kong. For good measure, she poured herself a big glass of red wine and performed her own exorcism on the kitchen, dancing around it in the gray t-shirt he’d left behind to decidedly un-violin music.

One more quick breath to calm her beating heart, then she’d open her eyes and happily go up to the reno party...

“Hello, _Mol-ly_ Hooper.”


	7. Detox

Sherlock nearly bounded out the door at DI Hopkins’ text. Her request for assistance was a welcome distraction from the reno party. Small as it was, Sherlock felt…agitated for some reason.

“Just popping out a moment. Hopkins is sending over some images. Wants me to assess.”

“Ah, Sherlock. It’s your party. Take the evening off," Greg insisted. "Let me deal with Hopkins. You stay up here and entertain —“

“— Apparently a rather decayed corpse found near Barbot Close,” he hastened, reaching for his Belstaff now hanging back where it belonged - on the hook behind the door. He spun around, stretched his fingers toward Rosie and tickled her cheeks. “ _Aaand_ ," he cooed, stooping to the child's eye level, "wrapped in construction plastic. Yes it is, Rosie of the world!“

“And tied with a bow for Sherlock Holmes,” John teased. “Go, yeah, sure. We can hold down the fort. Isn’t that right, Rosie?”

The baby in John’s arms smiled at her Uncle Sherlock and gurgled a blessing.

“Excellent!” He bowed to his goddaughter and took to the stairs. “Won’t be long,” he shouted. “Rosie, keep an eye on your Uncle Mycroft. Don’t let him feed the goldfish.”

Sherlock didn’t expect to see Molly in his foyer.

He should have, however. The hall smelled faintly of lily of the valley. And something more base… It took a moment to register her small frame standing in the dim light. He’d missed all the signifiers of Molly’s presence. Her nearness was clearly disrupting his acuity. 

And she wasn’t standing at all. Well, not _merely_ standing. She was pressed against the wall, eyes closed, face reddening. Molly always thought the effect blotchy.

He thought it lovely.

That base note he’d picked up on as he rounded the corner was _her_ , not her perfume. Musky, mossy and unfolding under the floral top notes. It made his scalp tingle. And his cock twitch.

Sherlock said the first thing that came to mind.

“Hello, Molly Hooper.”

Then quickly admonished himself for the tone of his voice. Too eager. Too depraved. Too needy.

She turned her head toward the sound and slowly opened her eyes, liquid brown orbs obliterated by fully blown pupils. She acted as though roused from a dream. An aggressively suggestive one at that.

 _Down boy,_ he cautioned himself.

“You look awful,” he observed, brushing passed her and swinging out the door onto Baker Street. “Just popping out to take this. Won’t be long.”

Sherlock felt Molly’s eyes on him as left. He was tempted to turn ‘round, stride back and kiss her, taking her face into both his hands, pulling her under his coat and feasting on her open mouth before she could protest.

Instead, Sherlock quickened his pace. His long strides completely bypassed the two steps in an attempt to reach the street before his erection could dictate terms. He couldn’t put distance between him and Molly fast enough.

_God. What was she wearing?_

He’d made a concerted effort not to look at her, to rein in his desire, especially upon noting the state of her eyes. Molly’s ensemble though…

Brown loafers. Aubergine tights. Teal skirt skimming the tops of her knees. Most likely corduroy by the way it bubbled out and hid her hips. Button down shirt with the pointed collar and tiny sailboats on it. Topped off with a mustard colored cardi and that slouchy green mac she insisted on wearing.

And the multi-colored scarf which was entirely too long for her petite frame.

A perfectly ordinary Molly outfit. No doubt Mrs. Hudson would compliment her on it.

He stood by his assessment: She looked awful.

If only because her hair wasn’t loose, her body not clad in a plain v-necked t-shirt and a pair of floral pajama bottoms.

Which hid a perfectly indecent pair of black lace knickers with a pink ribbon thong.

Sherlock’s trousers were becoming uncomfortable.

His mobile buzzed and he jumped to skim through the downloaded images. Better to turn his focus toward the torture of a nefarious bookmaker than continue down this path of self-inflicted excruciation. He’d engaged in that pastime for weeks. Years if Sherlock was being honest with himself.

When had he ever been honest with himself where Molly Hooper was concerned.

Sherlock hadn’t seen Molly since... He’d made her bed, put his bolt hole gear back in the drawer she’d assigned to him, and deactivated her mobile's alarm. She needed more than six hours to sleep him out of her system.

It’d been three solid weeks without contact between them. Almost four. He’d refrained from the usual random texts he’d send while she was on holidays. No casual inquires as to the location of a specific lab supply he couldn’t seem to locate. No link to a particularly fascinating piece of medical research he’d come across at four o’clock in the morning.

Twenty-five days. Bordering on twenty-six now, given the hour.

Sherlock had yet to sleep Molly out of _his_ system. He’d actively avoided sleep so as not to stumble into her. As a result, she stayed exactly where he could handle her overwhelming presence - in his dreams.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Sherlock’s eyes opened as soon as he felt Molly pass his side of her bed. He watched in silence as she stalked down the hall toward the lounge.

 _Away_ from him.

He rolled onto his back, a low, bitter sigh escaping his lips. John once told him that the most difficult part was getting the woman _into_ bed. He hadn’t elaborated on how to keep her, once there.

Sherlock didn’t mean the physical bit. He was well aware of how the pieces fit together. And how they felt once properly aligned. John’s suspicion to the contrary notwithstanding. And Mycroft’s. And Greg’s… in fact everyone’s notion that he was rapidly approaching 40-year-old virgin territory was preposterous. How had they all arrived at that same supposition?

Human anatomy and biology were sciences. He was a scientist, intent on proving hypotheses - right or wrong - and accumulating knowledge. Coitus was a topic of study. Enthusiasm for romantic connection wasn’t a prerequisite for investigation. In fact, there were many sub-genres of the act made infinitely more pleasurable without the weight of such interest.

No, Mycroft was incorrect. Sex didn’t alarm him.

_Emotion did._

Eurus knew how to alarm him.

As did his dreams. There, in the landscape of the terrifying, Molly tempted him. She stripped Sherlock bare, quietly inviting him with open arms and legs to lean back against her, to let go of his emotions.

The Woman...She purred, growled and shouted at times. She knew his release points. _Knows_ them and is infinitely skilled at drawing them out beyond the point of pain. That _is_ the point with The Woman. And he’s thankful for the release she offers. The Woman demands combat, a testing of wills. _But Molly…_

Molly invites confessions, a simple exchange of complicated information.

Sherlock ran to her at breakneck speed in his dreams.

In the confines of his late-night reverie at Baker Street, Sherlock leaned back into Molly's welcoming body. He could feel the muscles of her inner thighs coil around his waist, strong and safe. The springy hair of her mound pressed against his lower back. He relaxed into the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed into his ear. One of her hands slid under his arm to skim his rib cage, fingers lazily floating up to trace an areola. Her other hand ran through his hair tugging, just a bit, on the curl on the nape of his neck. The simple contact sent little jolts of pleasure straight to his nipples and groin.

In real life, she’d never touched his hair.

Dream Molly hooks her knees around his legs and grazes the insides of his thighs with her feet. His cock jerks, filling with blood, desperate for her teasing giggles and her slick wetness which now pools at the base of his spine. She lathes his earlobe with her tongue, sucking him in, coaxing his emotions out. 

He wakes from those dreams covered in sweat, right hand pumping his cock, thumb tracing circles against the tip, but it's real Molly’s tongue he's desperate for. The fingers of his left-hand cup his balls, creating pressure in a frenzy to find relief and hold onto that dream Molly. She floats out of his imagination and hovers above him. The image of her hair, free of its ever present elastic band, and her face, pink and damp, is so vivid. Molly’s eyes are darker than normal, lusty and filled with amusement. One side of her mouth kicks up, pulling the coil in Sherlock’s belly tighter. 

She boldly straddles his face, teasing with what he knows will be a gorgeous little pussy. It's a tacit order to lap up every inch. As if he needed to be told! Molly clasps her hands behind her head and arches her back. She spreads her legs wide, swollen lips hovering just out of his tongue’s reach. Sherlock can’t take much more of her teasing.

_He wants so much more of her teasing._

His mouth waters as his hands massage and pull on his cock. It’s never enough, though, this dream Molly. He needs to mark her, dig his fingers into the real thing. He wants to see her soft ivory flesh sporting proof that she's his, an imprint of his phalanxes left behind on hips, breasts. Sherlock pulls her down to his lips, his tongue. He breathes her in, greedy for the feel of her in his mouth. Molly moans and those lush imaginary sounds are enough to all but force the cum out of him. Sherlock laps up her entire seam, sucking and nipping before circling her fully engorged clit, making her shiver. He's addicted to those shivers. He'll do anything to give her all of them. He flicks his tongue inside her sweet wetness before slipping lower. That secret little spot makes her convulse over him, her hands pulling on his hair. His synapses fire off shockwave after shockwave down his spine. If real Molly would just pull on his hair...

Real Molly has no idea how many times he's found himself painfully hard in the lab, unable to leave the microscope for fear of her seeing his need. It's been happening more frequently to the point that he wonders if, perhaps, he should speak to his tailor about the cut of his trousers.

But naked in his bed, he relishes her seeing his need, how the taste of her, the smell of her, the sound of her pushes him. Imaginary Molly mewls her approval, his name tumbling out of her mouth, the hard consonants soft and silky. " _Sherlohhhhhck_..."

Deeper. He can't drown deep enough into her. He needs her in his mouth, on his cock. Everywhere. 

He was living for those solitary nights when he could bury his face in Dream Molly's pussy, covering himself in her smell and taste, and imagine spending the rest of the day wrapped in her scent.

And that can’t happen. He can’t do this to his friend. _Real_ Molly. The nights he wakes - and there are more than he cares to admit - with cum blanketing his abdomen and chest and the orgasm rippling through his lower back and legs, are his burden. Not hers.

_Ah, the noble forbearance of the hero in a Greek tragedy._

He really was a drama queen.

Sherlock went to Bart’s immediately after Sherrinford in search of her. He needed to tell Molly he meant what he was forced to say, to wrap her in his arms and spend the rest of the night - the rest of his life - working out the myriad ways their parts properly aligned. A _friend_ would've given Molly space to process, not crowded her with his neediness. Clearly, he wasn't a friend.

And now he was sleeping in Molly’s bed - not sleeping - while she went in search of solace on the sofa.

_Selfish. Cruel._

Sherlock wanted everything from her because he knew Molly would give it.

_Because she understands what love is._

And he’d just take it. Her exasperated sighs, her smart remarks, her kind words. The pinches to his nose after she’d clocked him. He wanted all of it.

Her soft smiles, the ones he’d convinced himself Molly only ever directed at him. Saved for him. No one else. Not the Tom’s in her life. He needed those most of all.

Like a drug. Like an addict.

Sherlock stared up at the ceiling. He’d been clean for weeks. Molly wasn’t simple relapse. She was utter downfall. How prescient of her then, ordering him to ready for bed instead of making tea which she correctly surmised would lead to his unwelcome advances.

An adult directing a child because that’s what he was, sometimes.

 _Most of the time_.

Molly wasn’t interested in the incoherent ramblings of a child. Not tonight anyway.

_And yet…_

No. He was just delirious with exhaustion. She was right. She was always right. Like John. Like Mary. He was the goddamn genius and they were the ones always right. It was annoying.

He followed her instructions without dissent. He needed to get back into Molly’s good graces. He needed her.

Once in the shower, Sherlock let the scalding water run down his body and emotional delirium overtake him. Redbeard. Victor. The fort that Mycroft helped them build. “Helped” probably not the most accurate term for Mycroft’s participation. He was more on the design side of the operation rather than the physical. Sherlock and Victor lugged bits of fallen timber from the woods. Sherlock and Victor hoisted rope over branches for swashbuckling adventures and daring escapes. Sherlock and Victor were the only two allowed inside. Not Mycroft. Doubtful he would’ve attempted the ten-foot climb up the tree anyway.

_And Eurus wasn't allowed either._

A rare tactical misstep on Sherlock’s part.

_An emotional error._

And Victor paid the price.

As did Mary back at the aquarium.

As had Molly. "Via long distance dedication," he spat, the sentiment bouncing off the shower's shiny tile.

_Not so uncommon an error after all._

He squeezed his eyes shut at the realization, resting his forehead against the cool tile wall until the sting of tears pricked. For the first time since adolescence, Sherlock didn’t fight them. The tears fell. He watched the drops mingle with the bath water and circle down the drain. He held onto the ridiculous hope that Molly would come for him, quietly materializing on the other side of the foggy glass door. She'd strip off her pajamas and step behind him in the shower, wrapping arms around his waist and resting her head against his back. All without saying a word.

Because she’d know, just by observing, what he needed. She always knew what he needed, even before he did. He always _needed_ from her; assistance with the lab’s finicky centrifuge, results from a set of tests, help to fake his own death. A poorly prepared but much-appreciated cup of coffee - which he never appreciated.

_Selfish._

Sherlock should be holding her for what he’d done earlier that afternoon, what he’d made her say aloud. He’d shattered the wall he erected to keep Molly out, safe from him, and rode roughshod over the one she’d built for the same reason.

_Cruel._

When he’d stepped out into the hall, he’d meant to go straight to bed on the sofa. He never considered sleeping in her bed.

Yes, he had. But the scenario was vastly different from the one playing out now.

Then she’d bent over to pick up the toppled linens. Sherlock caught a glimpse of black lace and pink ribbon on Molly’s backside as her shirt rode up.

His mouth went dry. He felt a spring in his lower abdomen tightened. Sherlock fought the urge to reach for her, place his palm flat against the bare skin of her back, skin he knew would be silky and warm. The temptation to hook his index finger under the pink ribbon and give it a gentle tug was too great. He wanted to feel the slight tension in that little wisp of satin, knowing it spanned a path he desperately wanted to travel. He needed to get lost that morning and Molly was stronger than any narcotic. And more dangerous.

He willed his arms and hands to keep still.

Forbearance.

_Well done, you! Fancy a medal?_

And Molly… She stood up and looked at him with those wide eyes, little amber flecks catching light from the wall sconce. Seeing everything.

_Selfish._

The thought that Molly could see what he was thinking, coupled with the events of the last sixteen hours, sent him reeling. The walls collapsed around him, the floor tilted. Molly seemed off-balance in his world, dropping the linens again and falling toward him. He reached out for her. To steady himself.

He reached out for her to take what he’d needed.

_Cruel._

Sherlock scoffed and rolled over to where Molly had slept. Not slept.

The sheets were still warm and faint with lilies of the valley. He inhaled, flowers swirling around in his brain. He’d been awake, listening to her breathing. Shallow and annoyed. She was clearly furious with him. She had every right to be. Eurus or no, had he treated her better before his sister interfered, he and Molly would be friends right now. She’d probably be fussing over him with a vegetable omelet and wine - her favorite “after Bart’s” meal - and shaving copious amounts of cheese over the top for him, sliding it across the counter and ordering him to eat with the brightest of her smiles. And he’d complain but secretly be delighted that she’d bothered. And bothered with so much care. Instead, Molly was most likely counting down the hours until he left and she boarded a plane for Hong Kong.

He’d put her out of her misery. He’d get up right now and leave. Head out to John’s…

Sherlock raised up on his elbows but the weight of the day made his effort weak at best. He sunk back into Molly’s deep mattress and down pillows.

“Just a few hours…”

Outside, London was in full morning rush. Inside, the flat was quiet. Too quiet. He couldn’t sleep for all the noise his brain was making.

Sherlock spread his arms wide, idly wondering how many men had been in this very same position. How many uninspiring men had bored Molly to tears or neglected her needs in this very same bed? Or didn’t appreciate how beautifully her mind worked? Or count themselves lucky to be here at all, sharing the space with her little sighs and bad jokes and sweetly naughty black lace knickers?

_You're one of them, arsehole._

He was.

For Molly’s own good. And his.

He was also an addict in need of comfort, oblivion.

“Enough!” Sherlock kicked off the blankets and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. She could turn him down and he would know, one way or the other, where they stood. He’d go to her, scoop Molly off the sofa and carry her back to her own bed. If she resisted, he’d concede the bed, the flat - their friendship - to her. He wouldn’t wheedle or claim an exemption. He’d be an adult in their relationship. For once.

As such, Sherlock wanted to cradle Molly in his arms, spend the next hours circling his long limbs around her small body, holding her and listening to her breathe, only this time, the sound would be deep and contented. He wanted to test his theory that she was ticklish at the nape of her neck. He wanted desperately to be the man that appreciated her, that made her feel safe.

That she needed.

_That she deserved._

He swung his legs off the side of the bed. Courage and desire coursed through his veins.

A low, suffocated sob rumbled down the hall, the sound making his chest cramp and forcing him back down onto the bed.

Her sob.

_You’ve hurt her enough for one night. For a lifetime._

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Twenty-five days. Bordering on twenty-six. Even a brutal homicide couldn't quell Sherlock's fervor to debase himself at Molly's feet.

His detox had failed miserably.


	8. Oracles & Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still smoldering...

Molly stood in Mrs. Hudson’s foyer, the thrum of Sherlock’s voice still rippling under her skin. His sudden appearance and swift exit disturbed the air around her like electricity skimming the atmosphere. _Ozone._ There was no higher ground with Sherlock Holmes, no safe entry into his orbit. Or out of it, for that matter. There was only the forceful gale and the equally unnerving calm that preceded it. 

Most people took cover after meeting him and he did little to put them at ease. Molly could count only a few hearty souls who ever survived the whirlwind of Sherlock's personality.  

And for good reason. It was inherently dangerous to actually _love_ Sherlock. She'd had time to sort out that emotional peril in Hong Kong, coming to the conclusion that, between the two of them, someone needed to find the higher ground. Alone. Sherlock wasn't capable of being by himself any longer. So much for the better. He'd spent his life avoiding attachment, in service to the quixotic monkhood he'd created for himself. He'd even developed his own mantra, 'Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.' Now he needed friends around him, to keep him clear of the undertow. 

 _I love you_ buoyed her, made her feel lighter than air. And it pulled her under. Molly was a strong swimmer, she'd paddled in _I love yous_ before Sherlock. The intensity of his, however, threatened to drown her.

She rubbed her sweating palms down the front of her very favorite corduroy skirt. She'd come to Baker Street tonight because she loved the tempest, not the quiescent _ordinariness_ of her daily life, the safety of it. She wasn’t alone. A small group of fellow storm chasers currently gathered in the flat above to toast the reno of 221b. Safety in numbers, she thought, alongside Mrs. Hudson, Greg, Mycroft, John. _Mary…_

_Friends._

She'd come to Baker Street tonight to... let go of _I love you_. For the sake of their friendship.

Molly took the first two stairs and checked herself in the shabby hanging mirror. Jet lag threatened but she still looked cheerful and quite smart despite Sherlock’s appraisal of her outfit. “Not bad for twenty-five days away,” she complimented at her reflection.

A familiar, rumbling voice corrected her. “Bordering on twenty-six.”

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

She'd meant to pack her carry-on the night before. Molly had been so busy keeping herself… _busy_ , avoiding self-analysis, that she barely made time for essentials like packing. Or sleep.

The chaotic days between Sherlock’s _I love you_ and her departure for Hong Kong were a blur of intense conference prep and unnecessary hours at Bart’s. Stacks of never-ending research which could wait until her return now occupied the top spot of her to-do list. A rota of fresh juniors suddenly received her undivided attention. Low-level autopsies that could’ve been assigned to less-experienced staff found their way onto her schedule. Only when her head drooped over her laptop and bounced off the keyboard did she consider it safe go home. She was wrong.

Late night cab rides to Clapham were just expensive preludes to insomnia. If the driver took Victoria Embankment, Molly battled her heart’s impulse to change course before they turned onto Lambeth Bridge. _I’m sorry, would you mind heading toward Marylebone instead?_ Opting for the Albert Embankment proved no better. As the car skirted the Thames, North London twinkled seductively, reminding her that Sherlock’s flat lie just across the river.

But Baker Street seemed a billion miles further than that now.

Once home, sleep became the enemy, in collusion with _I love you._ It was impossible to slip under the bedclothes without imagining Sherlock lying next to her. His contented breathing thundered in her ears. Faint traces of posh soap still clung to the pillow he’d used. She moved to the lounge but couldn’t outrun her desire to rewrite history. _Let Sherlock make the tea. Go to him in the shower. Touch the curl at the nape of his neck…_

She'd sent Sherlock away so he could examine his _I love you._ He didn't ask for the same courtesy. He simply accepted her experience in whatever this was between them as superior to his own - an admission not to be taken lightly - and followed her orders. How ironic. In all the years she’d imagined Sherlock saying those three simple words, rehearsed her response to them, Molly had no idea what to do with _I love you_ now.

They hadn't communicated at all in days. While not unusual during the first few years of their acquaintance, Sherlock had instigated a regular pattern of early morning or late night texting since his return from the dead. He'd contact Molly at midnight with "urgent" requests in need of her acumen. Or send "an interesting article" her way - at 4am. She missed the flirtatious buzzing of the mobile chime she'd assigned to him and his outlandish inquiries.       

> _Need assistance sorting out relatively safe levels of D-mandelonitrile beta-D-gentiobioside / D-mandelonitrile beta-D-glucoside compounding SH_
> 
> Why can't you just type "cyanide" like normal people?
> 
> _How many normal people are texting you with this line of inquiry?_
> 
> None. Thank goodness.
> 
> _What dull lives these normal people must lead._
> 
> Please don't poison John again. He's got a wife & child to look after.
> 
> _Understood._ _Still require your assistance however._
> 
> I'm reluctant to give it, Mr. Holmes. Who's your 'subject'???
> 
> _Never you mind, Miss Hooper._
> 
> I'm waiting...
> 
> _Subject also named Holmes._
> 
> Sherlock!
> 
> _Molly!_
> 
> You do realize that Mycroft isn't your personal lab rat, yes?
> 
> _You do realize that Mycroft's tapped your mobile since the first day we met, yes?_
> 
> Bart's. Tomorrow. 9:15am.
> 
> _I knew you'd come round. Tomorrow then._
> 
> K.
> 
> _Molly?_
> 
> Yes?
> 
> _It's already tomorrow._
> 
> Go to sleep Sherlock. 

Molly longed for the intimacy of those texts now. There wasn't a lascivious word between them and yet Sherlock's texts were the most sensual messages she'd ever received. Far more arousing than the sexts she'd gotten from all of her boyfriends combined. As their exchanges grew more frequent, sometimes lasting for hours a night, Molly's Pavlovian response to his assigned chime became more urgent. She nearly put Tom in traction on several occasions. Poor Tom. He clearly enjoyed the attention (who wouldn't?) but never put the late-night buzzing and her shameless grinding on top of him together.

Molly often wondered if Sherlock plotted out this conditioning as a sort of social experiment. She wouldn't put it past him. She didn't blame him. It was some of the best sex she'd ever had.

It wasn't the teenage titillation of the texts she missed. It was a simple fact that Sherlock was comfortable texting her when he couldn't sleep. That he thought to contact her when scribbling down some chemical string. She'd toyed with the idea of reaching out to him. She'd even composed something.  _I’m here when you want to talk. Or not talk. Whichever. It’s fine._ Saved it to her drafts, gave serious consideration to firing it off every hour since waking to an empty flat four days ago. But she couldn't hit send.

Of course not. He was dealing with a family crisis - THE family crisis - in addition to still suffering acute mental anguish and fallout from Mary’s death. She didn't want to get in his way of his grief.   
  
And she couldn't forgive herself for allowing  _I love you_ to get in the way of their friendship. 

Her mobile pinged a five-minute warning. The pathology conference arranged for a car to fetch Molly promptly at 5:15. In an effort to stay well out of her head, she’d tried to decline. Navigating the Tube offered mindless distraction. “I’ll simply transfer to the Express at Paddington.” she insisted. “An easy switch off the Bakerloo,” she chirped, imagining herself maneuvering a wheeled case, probably weighing more than she did, through rush hour crowds. “No worries!” she objected, perfectly comfortable with the prospect of first walking the fifteen minutes to Stockwell station before eventually connecting to the Express. “I’m absolutely fine with the Tube!” she prattled on. “Really! It’s no bother, you needn’t —”

“— Miss Hooper,” the exhausted conference representative sighed, “it’s part of the service. Please, just take the car.”

Now, minutes before its arrival, Molly finally allowed herself to be chuffed. It was just a posh cab ride but damn if she didn’t look forward to some pampering. She’d been beaten by words so soft and ardent they left no visible marks. All the damage was internal.

_And partially self-inflicted._

Molly gave the flat one final check. Bed made. Extra quid tip for the kid hired to water the plants, take in her post. Kettle unplugged.

She sucked in a breath. The kitchen was quiet, clean…and, four days on, still reverberating with Sherlock’s presence. The swing of his coat as he took down the mugs but left the tea unmade. The rise and fall of his shoulders as he prepared to say something to her but didn’t. She thought she’d purged him from her physical space at least.

She imagined his seductive rejoinder to her arrogance.  _Exorcisms aren’t really your area are they, Mol-ly Hooper?_

No. They aren't. She cursed him, cursed herself and slammed the door shut behind her.

Molly desperately needed an oracle or a decoder ring to help make sense of her and Sherlock. _Together_. The potency of that word upended her neat life, much like the man himself. What she got was a sleek Jaguar waiting for her at the curb. Black. Tinted glass. Driver in an expensive suit rather than a company jumper and cotton trousers. Not exactly the answer she sought but far from a disappointment.

“I could get used to this level of pampering,” she whistled.

The driver hopped out, grabbed the wheeled suitcase from her hand and swung the door open for her. All without saying a word. Quiet, impersonal efficiency. She watched with admiration as he tossed her luggage into the boot, “Guess I should’ve double-checked your credentials.” she snorted, swinging her carry-on ahead of her and climbing into the car’s dark interior. “Don’t want to unwittingly slip into the clutches of villainous mastermind —“

“— Hello Miss Hooper.”

“— elder brother of a graduate-chemist-addict-consulting-detective,” she frowned. Mycroft Holmes was the last person she wanted to encounter on her escape from London.

_Second-to-last._

“I hope you don’t mind the carpool, Miss Hooper.” His voice lacked its supercilious edge. That didn’t bode well, but for whom Molly was unsure.

“Em, Mycroft,” she ventured, “I’ve helped you fake your brother’s suicide and monitored three of who knows how many total detoxes he’s required in the last nine years. I, em, I think we’ve both earned the right for you to call me Molly.”

“Point taken, Miss… _Molly_ ,” He tapped the handle of his umbrella against the glass partition separating backseat from front and the car started off. Mycroft’s patrician features bore a pained smile similar to the one that clouded Sherlock’s normally animated face four days earlier. Clearly, neither Holmes brother was comfortable navigating the weary emotional territory mere mortals traveled on a daily basis. And they definitely didn't enjoy doing so in public.

Molly ignored her own unease and concentrated on not disappearing into the massive leather seat. If she rested against the back, like an averaged-sized human, her short legs stuck straight out, making it impossible to for her to touch the floor. If she planted her feet, Molly’s body pitched forward, wobbling every time the driver took a corner or rumbled over rough pavement. She opted for the rather un-posh compromise of tucking her legs underneath her. As an intimidation tactic, she had newfound appreciation for this menacing car business. The setting was certainly imposing and Mycroft always did have the look of a harbinger to him.

She assumed his dour appearance was a side effect to the burden of being the entirety of the British government. Now though he looked like… a man. Nothing more. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his broad shoulders sagged beneath an impeccable suit. He was clearly days into contemplating very human emotions rather than Machiavellian political intrigue.

“Miss… _Molly_.” He corrected himself, paused. Mycroft’s tone was stripped of the familiar Holmes bravado and rapid-fire delivery. As terrible as she felt for Sherlock, Molly suddenly worried more for his brother. The elder Holmes was normally so substantial, impenetrable. The version sitting beside her now was beset by a swarm of emotions and too weak to mount his usual counter attack.

She could see, now, how much he and Sherlock had in common. The armor was different - a bespoke three-piece suit instead of a Belstaff - but their strategies were the same: Deploy annoyance, dismissal, and disapproval to combat affection, concern and empathy. Neither brother was in the habit of allowing sentiment to win a battle, much less the war. 

But Molly saw Sherlock's feelings getting the better of him as of late.

_Bringing out the very best of him._

Four days ago. And she sent him away.

_Who's afraid of sentiment now?_

Molly tamped down the thought. "Mycroft. I suppose you’d better tell me what you’re doing here or we’ll be at the terminal before you’ve —”

“No chance of that, actually,” he nodded toward the front windshield, “I’ve arranged for a mild traffic incident on the M4.”

Molly dropped her carry-on to the floor and turned her full attention to him.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he waved her off. “No casualties. Just fenders and flared tempers.”

_He IS the British government._

“Obviously, Molly, you know — ” Mycroft weighed his words before starting again, “That is, you’re aware that my brother - our family - has suffered the most traumatic of…incidents. Sherlock no doubt told you what lead to his…to our sister forcing him to…contact you.”

She said nothing. What was there to say?

_I love you._

“I was in the room when the call was made, Molly. As was Dr. Watson.”

_Oh god._

“It cannot have escaped your notice that my brother is not well versed in the… _peccadillos_ between men and women.”

It should’ve rankled Molly more, Mycroft equating _I love you_ to a peccadillo. Instead, she chuckled. His turn of phrase was, well, so very Mycroftian. So very 'in the back seat of a limo with a strategic mastermind'.

“The point I’m failing to make here Miss — _Molly_ , is that I was completely unaware of Sherlock’s feelings toward you. Everyone was. Is. I believe even he himself. But not Eurus. Our sister. The torment she put him through, specifically, well, it's indescribable.”

Sherlock wanted to describe it. That night. At Bart’s. In Clapham. She'd thwarted him at every turn.

“To be dealt these revelations simultaneously - that he has a sister, that his best friend died at her hands. That he’s capable of love. That he… _loves_ …” Mycroft’s voice trailed off, his eyes resting, not unkindly, on her.

The warmth which now supplanted Mycroft's normally cool demeanor struck Molly like the blast from a furnace.

“I bear a large portion of the responsibility regarding the treatment my brother’s currently undergoing — “

“ — Oh no!” Molly panicked. “He’s not — ! “

“— No. No,” Mycroft rushed to put her at ease. “He’s not using again. He’s sought the services of a therapist. Submitted to intensive talk therapy.”

Molly’s mouth dropped open but for the life of her, she couldn’t make sound come out. The man who loved to talk about his skill, his superiority, willingly talking about his _feelings_ knocked the words out of her.

“Yes," Mycroft acknowledged, "my sentiments exactly.” He filled the intervening silence with the missing details. The three Holmes children growing up in Sussex. Sherlock’s pirate fantasies. Eurus’s frightening level of psychosis. Red Beard. Victor. The institutionalization of the youngest Holmes. His sister’s growing command of her ferocious intelligence. Uncle Rudy’s subsequent decision to engineer a fire, fake the girl’s death and relocate her to a maximum security prison. The man saddled Mycroft with a file full of lies, the reality of his parent’s heartbreak and the burden of orchestrating the false notes of his brother’s childhood. Molly disliked this Uncle Rudy immensely.

Outside the car window, traffic slowed to a crawl as it approached the masterfully coordinated collision. Inside, Molly calculated how long it would take for her to run back to Baker Street.

_To Sherlock._

What good would it do to interfere now, though?  Hadn’t she done enough damage by refusing to listen to him four nights ago? Or had she set him on a more meaningful path toward recovery by giving him time to sort out his emotions? To feel?

_Those are all very high-minded questions but…_

But not her main concern. The thought she’d bottled seconds after her mobile cut out, denying her time to bask in Sherlock's breathy second _I love you_ bubbled to the surface.

_Was she truly prepared to live with his real, raw lucidity? To finally get everything her little heart had always desired?_

Doubt threatened to drown her in the back of the Jaguar.

Sherlock wasn't the only one who knew how to engineer situations to his benefit. After nine years, Molly was well versed in choreographing some exquisite masochism between them. Push-pull. Push-pull. She'd fallen out of love with him so many times. The descent always made her queasy, like that first dip of a rollercoaster. Sitting at someone's bedside, ducking remarkably filthy comments, as they sweat out enough narcotics to bring down a stable full of horses generally sours a girl on a boy. _Generally_. Molly logged disgust, anger, hurt, sympathy in the dark hours of her shift. And always (always!) the inevitable climb back to the apex of their push-pull was worth it. She craved the delirium, those brief moments when she'd startle herself awake to discover him staring at her, clear-eyed and vulnerable... 

And then the beautiful boy was gone, overpowered by the growling abuser. He'd rip the IV out of the only vein Molly found that hadn't collapsed. Intent on frightening her into leaving him alone, Sherlock typically marched around the flat, blood leaking from his IV wound, poking until he drew her into verbal combat. Molly's relationship with Jim - brief and technically unconsummated - was arguably his favorite subject when high off his tits... 

> "...so, tell me, Molly, how does he like it? Hmmmm? And, please, spare no detail. If we're going to sit here killing time while I plummet to earth, you may as well tell me a bedtime story."
> 
> "How does who like what?"
> 
> "Don't be obtuse. Your face gives you away."
> 
> "I don't know what you're talking --"
> 
> "-- The blushing, Molly. By the looks of it blooming across your face, Moriarty preferred it filthy. Preferred _you_ filthy --"
> 
> "-- You sound like a jealous boyfriend."
> 
> Sherlock shot over to her, his cool eyes ringed with rage but his voice was low, the words choked. "Don't ever include me in that sad collection of yours," he spat. 
> 
> Molly surprised herself, rising from John's chair and literally going barefoot toe-to-toe with him. "Done. I've not much use for a narcissistic virgin anyway."
> 
> They stood that way for several seconds, silently challenging the other to blink first.
> 
> "Fuck off," he mumbled, brushing past her and slamming the bedroom door shut behind him.

Molly found she had more than enough backbone to knock down the addict in hopes of drawing out the beautiful boy. Her beautiful boy. Perversely, she relished the opportunity to whip her own impressively foul vocabulary at his head. Those harrowing sessions existed in an alternate universe, somewhere between their awkward reality and a passionate abstract she knew would never materialize. When bullying her with his six-foot frame no longer had the desired effect, Sherlock attempted to wheedle and bargain. In a last-ditch effort to get his way, the world's only consulting detective succumbed to his basest instincts. He stalked her around the flat, showering her with devious charm and blatantly rude suggestions. When he offered to finger her in return for her getting the fuck out of his flat and leaving him in goddamn peace, Molly smiled sweetly and pretended to consider his proposal. Her charade was enough to catch Sherlock by surprise - and she kneed him in the balls. Once they'd battled through his first 72-hours, Molly passed babysitting duties onto John, Mary and the formidable Mrs. Hudson.

Two addicts. Multiple detoxes. Three _I love yous_. Four if she counted his instructions to her... 

One seriously unstable friendship. What were they doing? What was _she_ doing?

_You love the tempest._

Mycroft gave Molly a moment to digest the harrowing details of his Holmes family saga before continuing: Jim’s participation in Eurus’s tightly choreographed tragedy, the prison governor’s suicide, Eurus’s murder of the governor’s wife. And on it went. Eurus forcing Sherlock to chose between his brother and his best friend, Sherlock aiming the gun at his own head rather than John's or Mycroft's. The riddle at Musgrave Hall…

The coffin room.

_Sherlock._

Molly barely registered that traffic had started up again. Or that Mycroft had reached the end of his story. A deafening silence buzzed all around the cavernous backseat. She'd suffered a few bruises at Eurus’s hands but Sherlock had been drawn and quartered, the mental traumas hitting him in rapid succession on the heels of Mary’s death.

Her eyes welled up. She’d swabbed his swollen hands that night in the lab and told him to take is knocks like everyone else.

_He’d already been well and truly knocked by the time he’d made his way to Bart’s._

“Molly, you’ve known my brother a very long time,” Mycroft was saying. “You know he’s capable of logic and that his cognizance, while not superior to mine, is in fact remarkable.”

She rested her head back, staring at the interior of the roof in an effort to keep mascara from streaming down her cheeks.

“He’s out of his depths when it comes to basic human interaction. I myself find…connection… rather tedious. I’ve tried to instill that same viewpoint in my brother. For the sake of his overall mental… well, he’s always been so alarmingly emotional.”

“The Holmes version of _alarmingly emotional_ is not the standard interpretation, Mycroft. Makes it more difficult for bystanders to figure out.”

“Nevertheless, he’s rebuked my vigilant efforts at every opportunity, rushing headlong into relationships with Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson. _You._ ”

“I wouldn’t say he’s _rushed_ into relationships.”

Molly felt the soothing pressure of Mycroft’s hand on her shoulder. “Sherlock’s back was to me when he said…well, I couldn’t see his expression. I read his body language, however. And witnessed the aftermath.”

She recalled Sherlock's lovely, luminous skin marred by trauma. The beautiful boy again, that humble grace with which he'd submitted to her care.

“And I saw your face, before Eurus cut the feed.” Mycroft’s voice wobbled with uncharacteristic tenderness. Molly found his unease with this conversation oddly comforting. “Well…,” he sighed, signaling that he’d reached his limit with emotional intimacy. “Molly, everything I know of…fondness between two consenting adults I learned from film noir.”

“Not a very good teacher, those.”

“No. I suppose not. Of course, they did teach me everything I know about fashion,” he swept both hands down the front of his immaculate suit in an exaggerated pantomime of a gameshow hostess.

Molly laughed out loud, grateful to Mycroft for the comic relief.

“As I was saying, I’m afraid I know nothing of _I love you_ — “

“— Mycroft, if you’re here to apologize for Eurus or your brother, please. Don’t. It’s beyond unnecessary.”

“I’m here to apologize for myself, Molly. And my hand in whatever has…has not transpired between you and Sherlock over the course of your acquaintance. I’ve done both of you a terrible disservice. In addition to the one I’ve paid my mother, my father…and my sister.”

“It seems Uncle Rudy should answer for a good portion of that disservice, Mycroft.”

“Would that he was still alive and cross-dressing his heart out to consider the consequences of his actions. I thought I was protecting everyone I loved. Sherlock thought the same,” he nodded, “keeping you at arm’s length —”

“— I’m not canceling my trip.”

 _Where did that come from?_ Why was she suddenly in the habit of deflecting Holmeses whenever they tried to open up to her?

“Nor should you. I've taken the liberty of reassigning you to first class from business, ordered a bottle of Virgin’s finest Cabernet to be delivered just after take-off. Please accept it as the beginnings of my apology for commandeering your livery. For so many other things.”

The car eased onto the shoulder of the M4 behind another vehicle. It was identical to their own in every way except for the attractive brunette stationed outside of it, madly pecking away at the screen of her mobile. Molly didn’t need to see the full cascade of the woman’s Veronica Lake hairstyle to know she was a bombshell. Nor did she have to look at the label of her skirted three-piece suit to know it came from some Saville Row tailor - possibly Mycroft’s own. “What’s the clothing budget like for MI6 operatives?”

“You’d be appalled if I told you.”

“To the good or bad?” she asked. Mycroft only offered her a tight-lipped half grin. Did every member of the Holmes family have that exact expression in their repertoire?

“Forgive me if I don’t see you to the gate. In case you’re wondering, this is the least sinister of my methods.” As the driver came round to his side, Mycroft waited with the bored ease of a man used to having car doors opened for him.

Molly swallowed back the few tears that still threaten, “Thank you for…all of this. The ride. The wine. Everything.”

“You’re an exceptional woman, Molly. A damsel in distress couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

“I think the events of the last few days have me confused, Mycroft, more so than distressed.”

“I meant Sherlock.”

“Oh. I thought you said he wanted to be a pirate.”

“Molly, I think it’s safe to say we’re two of very few people who can see underneath that absurd Belstaff of his to know he wouldn’t have made it as a pirate. Have a safe trip and a successful conference.”

Molly watched Mycroft walk away. Somehow over the course of the ride they’d become friends of a sort, albeit akin to war buddies, but friends nonetheless. She powered down the window and called after him. “For the record, Mycroft, I love you is challenging for anyone to make sense of.”

“Yes, so I gather.”

“Especially when there’s a Holmes involved.”

Cars raced by, making up for time lost to the accident. Mycroft considered her statement then covered his heart with his hand and bowed in her direction.

“We’re endeavoring to make it simpler, Miss Hooper.”

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

“I didn’t know you were so anxious for my return, Mycroft.” Molly arched her brow. For a split second, she considered reaching her hand out to his but thought better of it. They may have been war buddies, friends even, but he was still Mycroft. And for that Molly was glad.

“As it happens, I was, but not so much that I counted the days."

"I'm disappointed."

"Don't be. I saw the red hash marks on the calendar in Sherlock’s kitchen. Quite simple, really, to deduce what he’d been tracking."

Her stomach fluttered making it almost impossible to carry on this conversation in a casual manner. “Are you…em, so. Are leaving? So soon?”

“Shortly, but not just yet. I hear your conference debut was a smashing success."

“How did you…? Well. Yes, well,” she was about to say something self-effacing but Molly had earned her success and the right to take pride in it. “Yes. I’ve been invited to Vienna in November as a lead presenter.”

“Well done. I'm looking forward to reading your follow-up paper. For now, however, I've come down to annoy my brother.”

“Nice to see some things haven’t changed,” she grinned.

“That, I can assure you, Molly, never will. Did the two of you cross paths?”

“Yes. He’s out there.” She pointed toward the door, “That's why I’m headed upstairs.”

“Ah. I see. So the more things change the more they really do stay the same.”

Was that disappointment she heard in his tone? Sadness? Was he hoping for something less _Sherlock_ from Sherlock? Was she? “I’m also glad you haven’t reverted back to calling me Miss Hooper.“

“I trust that will never change either, Molly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m not one for Mrs. Hudson’s nibbles or gawking at tiny humans.”

“Ah. Well, as it happens, I am. I’ll see you up there, then, when you’ve finished annoying?”

“Absolutely. I may even succeed in agitating my brother enough that even he returns to the party.”

 

A chorus of happy voices greeted her at the top of the stairs. 

“Molly! So great to have you back!” Dear Greg. He kissed her cheek and flashed that broad, accessible smile at her. The man was so comfortable in his own beautifully weathered skin and unassuming suit jacket. Such a contrast to Mycroft's aloof detachment. She made a mental note to watch for any traces of _intimacy_ between the two of them this evening. It would be rude to ask outright.

_But so satisfying to learn that they’d developed a closeness…_

And to imagine Sherlock having played a small hand in the matchmaking, even if the resulting relationship was born out of Eurus’s malicious intent.

“Oh, Molly! How smart you look!” Mrs. Hudson gushed. “Lovely to finally have female reinforcements. Rosie and I were feeling outnumbered with all the boys around,” she clucked, a mother hen happy to have the coop repaired and all her chicks back under its roof.

“Oh, hey, Molly! Fantastic!” John beamed. He handed her a big glass of wine and shifted Rosie on his hip so the two girls could coo at each other.

“Oh Rosie-Of-The-World how I’ve missed you!” She leaned in and rubbed noses with the baby. “My goodness, John, three weeks away and I’m afraid I barely recognize this young lady now!”

“Tell me about it!”

The four of them settled into comfortable conversation with Molly taking Rosie from John and inspecting the flat. Amazing how much of the familiar had been put back to rights. Most of it anyway. Sherlock’s Le Corbusier now sported a few professionally upholstered patches and a dented leg but it looked none the worse for wear, considering that it had already been worse for wear. John’s thrifted chair survived and was back in its rightful spot. Even the mismatched wallpapers and spray painted smiley face had been lovingly replicated.

But notable additions were everywhere. A bright, round child-sized table replaced the hard-edged coffee table in front of the sofa. Cloth nappies hung to dry on the rack in the kitchen. A collection of Babar books now shared shelf space alongside well-used copies of _Essential Clinical Anatomy, The New Science of Strong Materials_  and _Treasure Island._

And a tiny chenille monkey dangled by its tail from one of the bison skull’s horns.

The flat was awash in love and friendship, sorrow and hope. It was a heady combination, made more potent by the addition of wine and the press of Rosie's warm body against Molly's skin.

“Here,” John lifted Rosie out of her arms and handed the child to Mrs. Hudson. “I want to show you something.” He took Molly's hand and lead her out to the room upstairs.

“You really do look great, Molly, considering you must be tired as all get out. The jet lag has to be killer. Nobody would’ve blamed you had you shown up in pajamas.”

“Thank you. It’s my mea culpa ensemble.”

He furrowed his brows at her but didn’t say anything more until they reached the top of the stairs. He flipped the wall switch and the small room glowed. Soft light bounced off the butter yellow walls, illuminating the clean, white surfaces of a tall chest of drawers, a simple, modern desk with hairpin legs and an open toy chest.

“So what do you think?

“Oh, John, this is lovely! So you and Rosie —?”

“Yeah, well. Sort of. Once my bed and Rosie’s cot are delivered.”

“Sort of?”

“It takes about two hours to pry Rosie out from her Uncle Sherlock's arms once I say we’re leaving.”

Molly laughed. "He loves an audience, especially one that can't challenge him. Yet."

“I’m serious! Just last week, I started wrapping up our visit about eight o’clock. Then, for the next two hours, Sherlock came up with ‘just one more thing’ he had to show Rosie or another ‘hold on a moment’.” John shook his head in mock aggravation. “By the time I finally got her home to bed, it was after 11:30.”

“And, let me guess, then Sherlock texted you at least three times beyond that.”

“Yeah. Right. I didn’t get to sleep until after 1am. Not good for office hours. So, this is my compromise. A spot for us to bunk when it’s too late to get Rosie back home.”

“Baby’s first pied-a-terre, eh?”

John locked eyes with her, “That’s exactly what the uncle said, Molly"

“Hmmm…,” Molly quickly looked away. She wanted to talk about Rosie. About how he was holding up, not about Sherlock. At least not yet. She walked to the opposite side of the room, teasing John about the decidedly un-221b-ness of the space. No stacks of vinyl albums to trip over, no questionable compounds in brown bottles lining the window sill. No mismatched decor. Well, almost none.

“These are adorable, John.” Molly pointed to three simple line drawings hanging on the wall. Each picture featured members of a comical pachyderm family - holding different colored balloons - in frames so dissimilar they went together perfectly.

“Aren’t they?” John agreed. “You know ‘elephants in the room’ and all.”

“Ha. Mrs. Hudson is a wonder at the charity shops.”

“Oh, that’s not Mrs. Hudson’s doing.”

“No?”

“That’s all Sherlock.”

Molly ran her finger along the edge of one worn wood frame. Everything always lead back to Sherlock. “Well, well. He’s quite the shopper.”

“The frames? Yeah. Don’t know where he found them.”

She playfully affected Sherlock's posh tone. “In Lovejoy and Lovelorn's Rare Antiquities shop at the end of Thing-A-Ma-Bob Lane, of course, John." 

"Spot on, Molly. Lovejoy and Lovelorn, eh?" John chuckled

"Hmmmm..." She side-stepped John's gentle prodding again. She'd meant it just as a joke.

_It's funny because it's true._

"Shut up," she whispered.

"What? I didn't say anything."

"Oh, no. Not you. Never mind. I, um...My question is, where did he find these cute-as-a-button elephants?”

“He didn’t buy those, Molly. He drew them.”

Electricity coursed through her body as she traced the charcoal outline of the fat little creatures. 

_The beautiful boy would never stop surprising her._

“So, em, did you see himself? Sherlock, I mean, when you came in?” John hedged.

“Yeah,” she said, still admiring the drawings, “He hates my outfit.”

“Ha! Well, that’s his mea culpa mood,” John assured her.

Molly turned toward him, reluctant to begin this conversation, eager to get over with it. “What does he have to apologize for, John?”

“The nine years up until Eurus dialed your mobile, Molly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy to finally get back to my adorkable Sherlolly after a long absence. 
> 
> This sh*t isn't beta'd. It's just written for fun. If you've got corrections or input, please send them my way, you beautiful darlings!
> 
> \- The compounds for naturally occurring cyanide in Sherlock's text message are from an old text book of mine.  
> \- I lived in LND for a year (12 months too short!) for work so my memory of routes to Heathrow & North London from Clapham are a bit fuzzy. Apologies in advance.


	9. Combat & Card Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If I could just get them back in the same room together...

Sherlock waved his brother off. “No. I’ve given them up,” he huffed, annoyed with Mycroft for tempting him. “Thank you.” His tone softened. “It’s for good this time.”

“For good? Or…for Molly,” Mycroft queried, brows raised as he lit one cigarette.

“For Rosie.” Sherlock thrust out his chin, defying his brother to push him further.

“Ah, well, either way, long overdue.”

“Then why are you down here handing them out like biscuits?” he snapped, his petulance rising once more. Not waiting for an answer, he jammed his fists into the pockets of his Belstaff and paced the small patch of pavement between 221b and Speedy’s Cafe.

The April night was damp and crisp. Sherlock welcomed an excuse to wear his coat, to feel its familiar weight around his shoulders. London was warming up. He’d have to leave it hanging behind the door very soon if his recent walk through Regent’s Park was an indication. He’d taken Rosie out last week, John tagging along but only after Sherlock made him promise not to interfere with the girl’s lesson.   

> _“That one’s Prunus Kazan, Rosie. And this one? Prunus Tai Haku. Prunus, you’ll remember, is a sub genre of —”_
> 
> _“I should’ve known,” John laughed as Sherlock casually shifted Rosie from one arm to the other so she could reach for the ruffly white petals. “Can’t just point out the cherry blossoms, can you? The pretty flowers. You’ve got to show off your extensive knowledge of horticulture.”_
> 
> _“My extensive knowledge helped us locate the ambassador’s children in Addlestone,” he smirked. “And it’s botany.”_
> 
> _“What?”_
> 
> _“Botany, John. Not mere horticulture.”_
> 
> _“Yeah…ok. Plants then.”_
> 
> _“Rosie, please explain to your father the difference between extensive scientific study and narrow concentration of a sub-discipline,” he cooed. “You’ll remember. We went over this last week.”_
> 
> _“Sherlock. She’s thirteen months old.”_
> 
> _“Exactly. Left exclusively to your ordinary tutelage, John, our little Rosie would’ve missed out on thirteen months of botanic Latin. As it is, she and I are halfway through Carl Linneaus’ excellent 1735 reference ‘Systema Naturae’.”_
> 
> _“Of course you are,” John rolled his eyes and followed at a safe distance while Sherlock and Rosie investigated the rest of the flowering trees at the southern end of the park._

No doubt Mummy would appreciate her book returned to the country. Right now, however, Sherlock considered retrieving the weighty tome from upstairs and clocking his brother with it. A cigarette? And low-tar at that. Really?

He’d scrubbed himself clean these last months and he was determined to stay that way. The pace of his daily routine - frenetic even during normal stretches - had intensified to a fevered pitch since Sherrinford. Agonizing, exhilarating hours spent at Eurus’ side. Lengthy sessions in Ella Thompson’s chair. Family meals in London, Sherrinford or the country every third evening, by his mother’s design. Although he disliked the inconvenience, Sherlock confided that he found the cumulative experience of those dinners rather comforting. He swore Rosie to secrecy. Mycroft had close to forty years of ammunition. The man needn’t add to his stockpile.

Sherlock required lucidity during the days, not oblivion, as he reacquainted himself with his sister and his missing adolescence. The nights however…

He wasn’t entirely clean.

The amount of opiates he'd need to shoot-up, swallow or snort in order to keep Molly from invading his dreams would break him. So he endured her inevitable appearances sober - on the rare occasions he succumbed to sleep at all.

He welcomed her.

And he couldn’t break his addiction to touching her.

_I love you._

He’d gone to Bart’s the night of Sherrinford to explain himself, confident in his ability to justify ends and means. Convinced of Molly’s reception. She’d always been so accessible. Even her anger with him during detoxes was honest, without agenda. No doubt she’d understand, be moved. Reasonable.

And she was, carefully sidestepping his sloppy advances, salvaging shreds of decency from the rush of emotional context flooding their friendship. He’d conveniently forgotten about the nine years he’d spent avoiding their entanglement just enough to impede her future happiness with another person. He didn’t do so maliciously. He certainly didn’t do so consciously.

_Yes he did._

He was a complete arsehole.

Molly dealt him a quiet, stunning blow upon his return from the dead. Her engagement should’ve freed him as it had, apparently, her. He couldn’t resist one last attempt to stay in her orbit - without remorse. But as that single crime-fighting excursion wound down, he knew he had to let her go, that she’d be happier with an ordinary life. One that he couldn’t supply.

It wasn’t historical data that guided him.

It was John and Mary.

The Watson’s brand of domestic bliss wasn’t his cup of tea. He observed it, was even charmed by aspects of it. Then it was gone. By some measure of his own hand. He reminded himself that any number of variables could’ve worked against their marriage in similar fashion, Including Rosie’s joyous arrival.

But they hadn’t.

When Mary lay dying in John’s arms, Sherlock heard the mocking tick of time echo off the aquarium’s glass. The Watsons weren’t granted enough of it. Their chances for ‘ever after’ were statistically no good. They took those odds.

Sherlock’s parents placed their bets long ago and were still collecting dividends. Hell, even Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson gambled, lost, but didn’t seem weakened by the experience. If anything, his landlady had become a force not to be trifled.

Baffling.

By comparison, Sherlock spent every minute of his life actively avoiding the dull trials of companionship in pursuit of knowledge. He had an excellent teacher. His brother. He wasn’t so sure that Mycroft’s exclusive company was the only company he wanted to keep now.

When Molly informed him that he’d to take his knocks like everyone else, it wasn’t the ordinariness of the endeavor that alarmed him. It was that he might enjoy it. And fail at it, had already failed at it.

Sherlock wandered back to the front of his flat. “What," he grumbled. It wasn't a question.

"I didn't say anything."

"Mycroft. I know that exhale."

His brother let out another breath, long and unduly luxurious, watching the pale gray tendrils dissipate in the light mist. “I’m only doing what Mummy asked.”

“And that is?”

“Exhibiting more…brotherly compassion.”

“By offering a stimulant to someone with a chronic relapsing psychiatric disorder?”

“Well, it was either that or,” Mycroft grimaced, “a heartfelt embrace. And I think we both know how I feel about…contact.”

Sherlock circled his big brother slowly, coming round to stand toe to toe with him. “Oh? Do we, _brother mine?_ ”

Mycroft’s eyes flickered, too briefly for Sherlock to read. Then the familiar half-smile crossed his lips. “Yes Sherlock. We do.”

The mist turned to rain, fat drops landing like tiny, cold missiles. The little projectiles aborted their stand-off after only a few seconds.

“Well, I’ve left my umbrella upstairs.” Mycroft stamped out his cigarette and walked to the door. “You know,” he fidgeted, just a fraction but enough for Sherlock to notice, “the etiological factors compounding your addictive tendencies are not yours to bear alone. They’re also mine. For that,” he sighed, “I am truly sorry.”

The rain patted down harder but neither Holmes moved.

They’d always been locked in combat of one sort or another. When Sherlock was younger, Mycroft had the upper hand by virtue of age. And one and a half inches. Out here on Baker Street, though, they seemed to him to be evenly matched, neither interested in winning the game.

Sherlock nodded. “Thank you.”

“I was there for you before… ,” Mycroft’s voice trailed off, his shoulders sagging, “In retrospect, I could’ve done better. For you. For the family.”

“You’re here for us now.” Sherlock replied, his face completely free of its earlier irritation.

“Well…” Mycroft grunted. He straightened to his full height and smiled. “Let’s call it a belated cease-fire.”

“Or a hug.”

“Mummy will be so pleased. Coming?”

Sherlock shook his head. “You go up. I’ll follow in a moment.”

Mycroft couldn’t resist firing a parting shot. “Coward.”

 

Molly walked over to one of the room’s two small windows, looking down onto Baker Street. Rain had started to fall. The plump drops glittered in the light before assaulting everyone out on the pavement below. “John. I’ve played this game for nine years — “

“Yeah, so has he, apparently.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t know he was holding any cards.” She traced one of the drops as it trailed down the outside of the glass.

He’d never shown his hand until his second I love you. She was angry at him for not doing so sooner. Hurt by it. She hated that his behavior bothered her so she punished them both for it.

“Molly?” John nudged. “I said I still don’t understand the problem then. He said ‘I love you.’ Twice. For Sherlock, that’s like shouting it a thousand times. And hiring a brass band.”

“So he deserves a prize then?” She shot back, her own peevishness ringing in her ears.

John chuckled. “No. A kick in the arse? Definitely.”

She turned away from the window.

“Look,” he ventured, “Maybe the two of you could call this game a draw, move onto something more… I dunno, mutually beneficial.”

“What would that be?” she shrugged.

“Only the two of you can answer that.”

Why was it so difficult to give into what she wanted most? The man she wanted most? “I don’t think we’re currently speaking the same language, John.”

Mrs. Hudson’s bright laughter drifted up from the flat below. They’d been gone long enough. Molly was growing tired of the conversation, increasingly worried she’d locked herself out of the opening Sherlock had provided into his heart. If that was the case, she’d get what she told herself would be best for both of them - friendship.

“Molly, listen, I suspected Sherlock attracted to someone. And that’s quite a deduction to make on my part,” he said proudly. “I mean, the man is… well, not exactly forthcoming with his feelings.”

True. Then again, John missed all the important bits. She and Sherlock had shared intimate moments - Sherlock’s version of intimate, to be sure - during which Molly felt a mutual connection. Long, silent hours working side by side in the lab, the evening they plotted her part of his suicide scheme, fireside temper tantrums while he detoxed. That painful, brief congratulatory kiss upon her engagement.

His second I love you.

She’d chased the storm, caught up to it and stood right in its eye. Now what?

“ — and I told him she was out there,” John was saying, “that his life would be infinitely better if he would just allow himself to —“

“Ha! I’m sure he thoroughly enjoyed that conversation.” Molly imagined Sherlock at the edge of his Culverton Smith detox, the nausea and chills having given way to general restlessness, insomnia and anxiety - although with Sherlock, at least two of those symptoms were constant companions - sitting in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he contemplated disposing of his best friend’s body whilst John extolled the virtues of romantic relationships.

“ — go after her. I was wrong, about who she was. Is — ”

 _Wait._ What had john said? She’d only been paying half attention. Was Sherlock attracted to someone…else?

She didn’t think him a virgin, of course. Nor celibate. Well, not in the traditional sense. She hadn’t ventured too deeply into what _kind_ of celibate she thought him (were there 'kinds' of celibate?). She’d overheard things and then let her imagination run away with the details.

That bridesmaid. Janine. She’d seemed like a lovely girl. Truly. Really grand. In the obligatory bridesmaid sort of way…

John got a little tipsy on Champagne at the tail end of the baby shower and painted the broad strokes of the story to Molly. Then Mary pulled him out of the conversation with a kick to the shin.

Suffice it to say, Janine knew her way around Baker Street’s cupboards. And Sherlock’s button-down shirts. One wondered what other _strokes_ there were to the story. Giving that too much consideration, however, made Molly’s ears turn pink.

Then there was an oft-whispered allusion to the woman on the slab with no face. The Watsons had a sort of private joke between them, something about her donning Sherlock’s coat - or was it his blue silk dressing gown? - and _serving him the beating he so richly deserved_. While not her particular kink, the thought of someone else bringing Sherlock to his knees made Molly a bit jealous and her face flush.

And her nipples hard.

These gorgeous, graceful women had somehow piqued his interest in short order. Enough to have worn half his wardrobe between them. Not _somehow_. Any man’s attraction to them would be obvious. Sherlock was, despite evidence to the contrary, a living, breathing human male. They were raven haired, amply endowed beauties. Perfectly suited to fill out their lacy underthings and his discarded clothing.

Molly liked to think of herself - short, uncoordinated and possessing a drawer full of ordinary white cotton pants - as having worked her way into his brain over their nine year relationship. She wanted the option these women had been granted, to rummage through the pile of clothes he’d hastily flung to the floor before they’d…

She wanted to skim his cotton shirts and ridiculously fine dressing gowns in search of something to wear while she made tea. After they’d…

Foolish. He could fuck ad nauseam. As could she. Although she hoped he hadn’t. Work at Bart’s didn’t give her much time for personal pursuits as uni had but she did make the most of her options.

She just hoped Sherlock hadn’t.

She could see where he wouldn't have trouble lining up curious participants…

Although she really hoped he hadn’t.

During each detox and subsequent follow-up, she’d run the intravenous drug use panel on Sherlock’s blood herself, at his request (and Mycroft’s. and John’s). She knew he was clean. But those labs only tested his blood.

Not his heart.

“Who is _she_?”

“What? Well…,” John stammered. “What?”

“My mind was someplace else. I didn’t catch the beginning. You said you were wrong about who she was.”

“Oh, Em. She. You.” He shuffled in place. “Obviously.”

Molly was unconvinced. “No, you said you were wrong. Who is she?”

“Who?”

“Yes. Exactly.” Molly folded her arms across her chest. “Who? Who is she, John?” Poor John. For a brief moment, Molly felt sorry for him. So unable to hide anything on that honest, pleasantly scruffy face. His kind eyes exposed the discomfort he felt employing diversionary tactics. He was no Sherlock Holmes.

“Oh, em. It doesn’t matter,” he blinked. “I was wrong. The point is…the point…what’s the point I’m trying to make…?”

The sound of the street side door slamming echoed in the hall. Sherlock returning to the party no doubt. If not of his own volition, then due to the rain.

John pounced on the opportunity to back out of his statement. “I think I hear…we should probably be getting back down to the party.“

She didn’t budge. He’d drawn her into this three-way game. Molly was going to find out who she was playing against. Janine was one thing but the memory of a woman long buried? The dead didn't play fair. “John…”

“Molly, there’s no one. There’s you.” He said the words but avoided looking directly at her. “It makes sense.”

“Does it?” She sighed. “I think I’ve lost the plot then.”

“If he asked you, tonight, what you wanted, what would you tell him? Because, believe me, if the two of you don’t stop this circling around each other. Neither of you realize how time…” John trailed off but met her gaze head on.

“I pushed him away, John. That night.”

“He has that effect on people,” he chuckled. “But very few are able to actually go head to head with him.”

“I’m a good eight inches shorter than Sherlock,” she laughed humorlessly.

“And yet you best him every time.”

“If someone wins, John, doesn’t that means someone else has lost?”

John waited for her to finally say what had been rolling around her brain for the last month.

“If I, if we do this and we fail,” she exhaled, “I don’t think it’s something you can then go back to and build a friendship on. Then I’ve lost even that.”

“Lives are short, Molly,” he said simply.

"I’m sorry. I know. I’m a complete idiot! In light of you… _yours_ …and Mary.” The tears formed. Here in front of her was the best damn excuse for throwing all her chips in. What she had to lose was nothing compared to what she had to gain - even if she lost it.

“You’re already friends, Molly. Maybe what he needs now is a partner.”

“He’s got a partner, Dr. Watson.”

“You know what I mean.”

She did. “We should go back down before they send a search party, although I’m sure the great Sherlock Holmes would be quick to deduce our location.“

Molly lead the way downstairs.

John followed behind her. “He’s closer to good now, Molly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **finally added my images - i've been lazy**
> 
> I know, I'm sorry, the chapters aren't following a specific structure. I was more interested in getting the story down than following a consistent rhythm.
> 
> Apologies, again. My notes are all Jack Kerouac'd so it stands to reason that my finished product is a bit messy. LOL.


	10. Crash. Burn. Repeat.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallelujah. They're in the same room.  
> It can't be that easy though, can it?
> 
> (mild drug conversation but no usage)

Sherlock watched Molly from the protection of his violin, the bow in his right hand working those final measures with little to no pain. And more of a flourish than necessary.

Applause all around, from Molly included. A promising sign, he thought. She took pains, however, to focus that deceptively placid gaze on Rosie, on _everyone,_ but him. Scooping the baby out of Mrs. Hudson’s arms, She took the girl on another sightseeing lap around the flat.

“Bravo! Leave it to Uncle Sherlock to serenade Rosie with a song about the plague,” Lestrade chuckled.

“You are aware, of course, that multiple classic texts have debunked that myth, aren’t you?” Sherlock corrected, placing the violin back in its case but opting to keep the bow in hand. Then, he went right on correcting. “Any number of crowd sourced fact checking sites, too. Although I prefer to check my own work and —”

“I’d pay close attention, Greg, to his bibliography,” Mycroft interrupted from across the room. “My little brother prefers the 1898 Dictionary of British Folklore but I argue that the scholarly position is probably better served by drawing from Perrault’s much earlier works introducing Mother Goose.”

“How fitting,” Sherlock smirked, his eyes fixed on Molly and Rosie as they wandered into the kitchen.

Lestrade flopped down on the sofa and stretched out comfortably, “Jeez you boys. Can’t even let nursery rhymes off the hook.”

“Nope,” John chimed in. “Rosie’ll tell you they definitely cannot. Sherlock, want a drink?”

“Hmm? No. Yes. I mean, don’t bother. I’ll get it.” He tapped deliberately on his thigh with the bow and began a circuitous route to the kitchen. It was a sizable task considering the less than expansive square footage of the flat.

Sherlock brushed by Mycroft leaning against the doorframe, sipping his scotch. He lobbed a volley at his big brother. “ _Greg_ is it now?”

“Yes, Sherlock,” Mycroft straightened, gaining back the inch and a half he had on his little brother, and served. “That’s his name.”

A beat passed. Sherlock begrudgingly admired Mycroft. There wasn’t a muscle twitch or involuntary tell that his big brother didn’t have under control at all times. If he and Lestrade were involved in anything beyond a mutual respect for each other, Mycroft certainly wouldn’t tip it off. Sherlock’s mental capacity was not yet back to 100% which made Holmes-to-Holmes combat, although excellent training, unwise tonight. He shrugged and continued toward the kitchen. Best to turn his attention to Lestrade. The DI had absolutely no idea how to lower the volume on his thoughts.

Later. Right now, he was in desperate need of a drink. Conveniently, they were located in the kitchen. He grabbed a seltzer from the refrigerator, not bothering with a glass or ice. The fizz seeped into his veins and cooled his brain. While not the pleasantly numb sensation one derived off that first pull of scotch, the bubbles did have a soothing effect.

Alcohol had never been one of his triggers. Only weeks after his most recent (last!) detox, however, was probably not the best time to test his limits. Or anyone else’s. His relapses tended to accelerate from zero to a thousand in seconds. No time to take one’s foot off the gas with, say, a bottle of scotch when Billy could swing round Baker Street in half an hour and deliver a buffet of practically certified organic alkaloids! On the occasions when Sherlock’s needs far exceeded Billy’s impressive procurement abilities, he manufactured his own opioids in the comfort of this very kitchen.

Sherlock perched himself on the edge of the table, absentmindedly rubbing the back of his head with the bow and waited. It was tight quarters in here. The table met the refrigerator on one side and the hightop work surface on another. If she and Rosie didn’t reverse course, Molly’s path would bring her around to his side and they’d be forced to interact.

She continued on her current trajectory. A fantastic sign. As she wandered nearer, Sherlock extended his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. Right into her path.

_You’re pushing your luck, arsehole._

“Oh no, Rosie! There seems to be a troll waiting under this bridge.” She kissed the baby’s head and cast him a sidelong glance. Not full on eye contact but enough for Sherlock to reestablish communication. And her teasing must certainly count for something. He dragged his heels slowly under him to let her pass and affected Mycroft’s nonchalance as best he could. “I hear your conference debut was a rousing success.”

She shifted Rosie to her left hip, smartly putting the baby between them. “Yep.”

So this was how it was to be. None of the superfluous chitchat he’d come to associate with her. Just simple, direct answers over the soft, bald head of her armor. He was lucky to get that, he knew. If he had to string together a paragraph’s worth of one word answers, he’d gladly spend the next hour doing so.

Over the last nine years, their conversations in the lab had evolved into a sort of shorthand. He wouldn’t say a word for hours. She would just start talking. Molly zigzagged along this or that train of thought with no encouragement from him. Sometimes her words reached their destination, sometimes she’d abandon them mid-sentence. He assumed her verbosity a case of nerves and, perhaps, it was. In the beginning. After a year or two, though, her cadence shifted from tweety and high-pitched to gentle and modulated.

Sherlock liked the way her voice bubbled through his brain during those long hours at Bart’s.

He’d get none of that tonight with only one- or two-word answers.

“Ahhh. Well. Congratulations. I didn’t expect anything less.”

She addressed her comments to the baby but turned to face him straight on. “Uncle Sherlock’s making as if he doesn’t already know everything about my invitation to Vienna, Rosie-of-the-world.”

“You know me almost better than I know myself, Molly Hooper.” He held her gaze, working out how to keep her here. At Baker Street. Long after the last guest had gone home.

Mary’s voice rattled around his skull, ripe with amusement. _At some point you’re going to meet up with a situation you can’t manipulate, Sherlock…and it’s going to involve a woman._

“Well I’m for home boys and girls.” Mrs. Hudson’s voice tinkled, a touch of Champagne slurring her S’s. “Molly,” she nodded, “I’ll see you and Rosie tomorrow for lunch. 1:30. And you, mister,” she leaned into Sherlock, whispering in a rather pointed fashion, “don’t keep the girl up late. We’ve got plans tomorrow.”

A sweet little old lady well-versed at reading his thoughts. And the proper procedure for disarming a raging smack head. There wasn't a finer landlady in all of London.

His face went blank. “Rosie is _John’s_ responsibility —“

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re insinuating.”

“Yes you do,” she waved dismissively at him and disappeared into the hall.

Sherlock turned back to Rosie. “Well, that was rather rude.”

“Was it?” Molly’s voice was tinged with reproach but her eyes… “Hmmm.” Her eyes gave her away. Warm and bright. She circled him and began her second trip around the table, bouncing the baby as she went. The most encouraging sign he’d observed all evening.

A floorboard under the lino creaked as Molly shuffled past the cooker. She stopped short, reversed course and quickly moved to the fireplace. Without looking at him.

_Fuck._

He always disappointed her. Reminders of that fact were buried all over the flat.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Sherlock parried through two detoxes with Molly before John became his flatmate. Now, however, the Watsons were expecting their first child. There was little time for Mary and John to babysit him. So Molly and he were together again, wading through the early hours of his Magnussen debacle. In a perverse way, he relished her company even as he hated drawing her into the despair of his withdrawal.

She was too compassionate for him and more observant by half. She didn’t deserve to spoil under the fumes of a sociopath. No matter how high functioning. Two days into his withdrawal and Sherlock was sober enough to admit that Molly didn’t belong in his flat. Or his life - at least not so intimately. He needed to do something brash to get her out of both.

She tempted his uncomplicated, monastic life with her inappropriate snorts, exasperated sighs, and straightforward sentiment. And she was no longer engaged, a fact that made her presence here all the more enticing.

_He’d do anything to keep her at Baker Street._

Previous attempts to frighten her so he could crash - or relapse - in peace failed miserably. This time, though, he'd whipped up a caustic mix to spill between them. The game would burn just long enough to send Molly sprinting back to Clapham - away from him - well before it fully ignited and became _unmanageable._

Sherlock sat in his chair, hands steepled under his chin, half-listening to her even-keeled rant. She was full of nervous energy, pushing the sleeves of her jumper up to her elbows in a show of authority, proudly announcing that she’d wiped 221b clean of the drugs he’d stashed here and there. “You forget, Sherlock, I’m an expert at finding all of your hiding spots now. I know how your mind works.”

She didn’t, at least not when he was still moderately high, but he admired her pluck.

He wondered what it would be like if she truly _did_ know his mind and decided to stay anyway. Molly turning a gorgeous pink upon reading his thoughts…

Thank god his pajama bottoms were so loose.

_She's got to get out of here._

“Is that so, doctor?” His eyes snapped up to her face, pinning her in place. “What am I thinking now?” He raised a brow, challenging her to respond. Or walk away. Molly did neither. “How about now?” He lowered his voice and leaned forward, opening his legs a bit as he did so.

Molly pursed her lips together, forcing an exhale through her nose.

Excellent. This wouldn’t take long.

“I’m thinking that John lived here 24/7.” He stared at her, condescension dripping from his tone for good measure. “And he could only locate _half_ of what I hid. In plain sight.”

Sherlock captured Molly’s hand in his and pulled her just enough that she had to take a small skip between his knees to keep from falling forward.

Surely she’d pull away now.

She didn’t.

Her doe eyes widened but didn't quake. The little amber flecks flashed brightly as she stared at him. His brain warned to adjust course, that she threatened to swallow his bad behavior whole and spit it back in his face. A lump settled in his chest at the thought. He shook it off. Withdrawal aches again, no doubt. His ego pushed him onward.

_Keep going. You’ve nearly got her running for the street._

Sherlock turned her arm slowly, exposing the pale underside. “Maybe you should take a break from working so hard,” he smiled, wide and wicked, his thumb caressing the little tangle of greenish blue veins at her wrist. “Perhaps I’ll tell you a story, relay the horrors of intravenous drug use to you. Give the good doctor some firsthand knowledge to keep her company in the morgue since she spends so much time with the dearly departed. _Alone_.”

He felt Molly’s skin prickle beneath his touch but still, she said nothing. Nor did she extract her arm from his grasp.

_Just a bit further to push her out the door…_

“Would you like to know, doctor, how excruciating it is to miss one’s last viable vein? The physical pain coalescing with the unbelievable mental anguish of losing a hit to shaking hands and an uncooperative plunger?”

Molly raised a brow at him. She was not amused.

Nor was she moving.

Had the waning effects of his drug use caused a miscalculation? Were his manipulative skills so depleted this early in his detox? Had he misjudged her fortitude, her resistance to his charm, corrupt as it was right now? 

_When has she ever retreated from you?_

Doubt crept down his spine even as his fingers circled the protruding knob of her ulna. When met with the full brunt of his irritability, Molly sometimes ignored him. But most often, she met his petulance with tough, fair admonishment. Or, worse, showed him a tender kindness he did nothing to deserve.

He was such an arsehole.

And he was about to become more so.

_For her own good._

Sherlock shifted in his chair, casually pressing his knees against her thighs. An unexpected jolt vibrated deep in his already frayed nervous system as his pajama-clad bones grazed the muscles of her legs. The contact threatened to thwart his plan. He’d counted on _her_ unease, not his own.

His body was no longer interested in playing these mind games. Its objective was becoming rigidly clear. He pursed his lips together, the dull pain enough to return him to his senses, to his ultimate goal.

What was his ultimate goal? His upper and lower halves were at odds on this point now.

Molly’s pulse quickened beneath the thumb of his right hand as the fingers of his left trailed up her almost translucent skin. “Maybe you’d like me to trace the route an expertly proportioned speedball takes as it joyrides ‘round your circulatory system, hmm?”

She was assaulting his senses. The feel of her impossibly delicate wrist. The scent of lilies of the valley rising from her flushed skin. Her shallow breathing. Why was she still standing here in front of him?

_Focus!_

He collected himself and smiled, enamored with his skill. He didn’t have to look at her face to know she’d never allow him to get more than an inch farther up her arm.

When she didn’t move, Sherlock poured words like honey over her flesh, his tone more egregious than one used between _friends_. After midnight. In front of a glowing fireplace. “The cocaine fires first, white-hot, clearing the way for the overwhelming Neverland that is the heroin. And, zoom you go. ‘Round and ‘round. Wide awake enough to enjoy all that fuzzy sedation. Joints liquifying. Worries melting. Limbs sprawling… ” His voice faded. He watched in astonishment as his own fingers kept advancing, only centimeters now from the crease at her elbow. He felt like a spectator, not a participant. At any moment this movie would come to an abrupt end with Molly grabbing her shoes, her mac and storming down the stairs.

But she didn’t.

_For fuck’s sake! She was going to stop him. Right?_

Molly Hooper, normally as animated as a cartoon sparrow did. Not. Move.

Sherlock tore his eyes away from her arm. But not his fingers. What made him continue stroking her warm skin he did not know. He searched her face for a crack to exploit.

A buoy to grab a hold of.

He was in very deep waters now, had lost sight of the shore. If Molly didn’t back away from him he was going to sink to his knees and drown under the hem of her skirt, pulling her down with him.

She was an inch taller than him from her standing position. Two, maybe. But she stared down as though from the high point of a battlefield. Her brown eyes and pointed jaw were set in steely composure. A general offering her weaker adversary the opportunity to surrender just before she eviscerated him.

After what seemed like hours listening to the fire cackle at his presumptuousness, Sherlock let go of Molly's hand. He pulled the wool bunched around her elbow back down to her wrist. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

When she finally spoke, her voice was shimmery and a touch ragged. Battle weary but exhilarated. “So where’d you hide the remaining drugs?”

He flung his head back and addressed the ceiling. “There’s a hollowed-out floorboard. Under the loose lino. In front of the cooker.”

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Landmines under loose lino. It had the kind of rhythm to it that made Ring ‘Round The Rosie a runaway success. Sherlock needed to get his bitterness in check and their friendship back on track. He'd missed it these last weeks. He'd missed her.

“Ah, well, boys. And ladies,” Lestrade groaned. “It’s 12:20. I’m off, too. Nothing good ever happens after midnight and if I don’t leave now, I’ll fall asleep here on the sofa. Glad Baker Street’s up and running and all that…”

They were dropping like flies. This reno party had taken a turn for the better.

“Molly? Can I drop you anywhere? Jet lag’s probably gotten to you by now.”

 _Fuck._ Helpful, kind Lestrade. Why was he always so damned considerate?

“Oh, thanks, Greg. I’m fine. I’m going to…hang out here for a bit. I’ve missed the baby’s company these last three weeks,” she cooed.

“Oh yeah? Well, if he gets cranky, I understand a good winding helps.”

“Don’t worry, if he gets out of hand, I’ll put him to bed,” she snorted, trying to check herself but it was too late. Sherlock spotted the flush begin low on her neck, advancing rather quickly to her cheeks. “Oh, I mean. Not that baby,” her eyes flickered over to him, “This baby. Rosie. Not Sherlock. It was joke. I wouldn’t…never mind.” Molly went tight-lipped and turned back to pace near the front windows.

“Well, I’m off too,” Mycroft interrupted, making hasty to goodnights to John and Molly, ignoring Sherlock altogether. “I’ll walk down with you Greg.”

“Safety in numbers is it?” Sherlock called out from his perch at the edge of the kitchen table.

“Yours seem to be dwindling, _brother mine._ Careful that the sum total doesn’t amount to zero.” Mycroft took the stairs before Sherlock could craft his response.

Brotherly compassion was a work in progress.

Only John and Rosie stood between him and Molly now. And the kitchen table. Although an image of Molly sprawled across the top of it, giggling and snorting his name, briefly blurred his vision. He exhaled loudly, trying to expel the thought and his growing erection.

They needed to talk tonight. Just _talk._ He was fairly good at it now thanks to Ella’s guidance. He wanted to show off and Molly deserved the effort. If she wasn’t interested, then so be it. He’d return to the space they’d shared previously. As friends. He was good at that, too, now. _Friends._ If he wasn’t, then he’d go back to his old life without them. And she’d hopefully go on to a new one.

_Not hopefully._

He wanted to be better at what lies in the space beyond _friends._

He looked up to find Molly and Rosie standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Think between the two of us we could whip up a bottle with some rice for Rosie?” she queried, drawing him out of his thoughts. “You’re nearer to the refrigerator and I don’t want to slip on that loose lino tile in my bare feet.”

No reproach. No anger. Maybe even a touch of mirth.

“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah,” Sherlock drew himself up, hopping from the table to fridge to kettle. “I’ll get it. Stay right there — “ He stretched forward and tickled Rosie’s chin, careful not to invade the personal space Molly had cultivated between them.

It wasn’t ideal but it was a start.

His mobile rang. DI Hopkins. Damn it. She’d text if it wasn’t urgent. It wouldn’t be long. He could dispatch her in short order and get back to…Rosie. He grabbed the bow from the kitchen table and motioned to Molly that he was ducking into the bedroom to take the call.

She nodded slowly, wide eyes caressing his face. If he didn’t break away now…

Sherlock dispatched Hopkins as quickly as was decent. Tonight's Barbot's Close homicide investigation was clipping along but only because of his peerless guidance. For once, he'd let the professionals handle things on their own. Then he'd swoop in to clean up their inevitable mess. Later. Right now, he had a party to return to. When he walked back into the room, Molly was facing the fireplace. Rosie and John nowhere in sight.

“Where’d they’d go?” He tapped his thigh muscle with the bow, fidgeting to cover his obvious pleasure at finding her alone.

She turned around, face flushed from the heat, cardi removed and spread on the back of John’s chair, one sleeve clearly damp. The cotton of her blouse was less than opaque. No wonder she wore the cardi. Sherlock could see the curve of her waist set in relief against the firelight and the solid white half-cups covering her breasts.

"Headed to home. Rosie got tired-sick and vomited all over my cardi. It's a shame the upstairs isn't fully kitted for them." Molly knit her brows together and shook her head gravely. She seemed overly disappointed about the state of Rosie's room.

“Yes. Pity that.” Minutes ago, talking to her about their friendship seemed a wise course of action. Now though…

_It’s still a wise course of action, arsehole._

“The Watson girl can’t yet hold her liquor, Mister Holmes!” She snorted. collapsing into John’s overstuffed chair and beaming up at him. “Sorry. Jet lag’s got to me. You don’t mind if I collect my second wind a bit before calling an Uber, do you, _Sherlohhhck_? I’d never make it home on the Tube.”

Mind? If she kept saying his name in that way, she'd never make it home again.

_Slow down. You’ve got nine years of ground to cover before you race to the finish line._

And two I love yous.

Three if he counted his instructions to her.

Four if he counted her words to him. And he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you this wasn't going to be easy.  
> slow. hard. repeat.
> 
> **finally got around to embedding my title cards because everyone deserves something pretty to look at**


	11. Do No Harm

 

It was late. Or early, depending on how you kept time.

Either way, it was well past midnight. Molly had a twenty-minute ride to Clapham ahead of her and hours of sleep to make up for.

She tucked her legs underneath her skirt and arranged herself more comfortably in John Watson’s chair. Sherlock offered her another glass of wine. "If it makes you uncomfortable, Sherlock... the wine I mean, because you're...the detox...I can have water."

"I'm fine," he shrugged, tipping back a small bottle of seltzer.

"Okay." She savored the excellent vintage Mycroft had supplied, enjoying the way it massaged her tired limbs. Molly watched Sherlock over the rim of her glass as he took another gulp of fizzy water. The long infrahyoid muscles of his neck wrapped down to his protruding clavicle and, farther, to that lovely sternum hidden under his slim cut white shirt and silky blue dressing gown. Her fingers twitched, envious of the liquid sliding down his esophagus. Jesus! Even when she tried to look at him squarely, ticking off anatomical terms as though he was a body on her slab and she had scalpel to hand, Molly couldn't help wanting to touch him. No, not touch him. _Feel him_. The difference was as intoxicating as the wine.

“I do believe you’re trying to get me drunk, Mr. Holmes," she blurted.

“Is it working, Miss Hooper?”

“No," she responded flatly, certain he could hear the pleasant haziness floating around her head.

“Then no, I’m not trying to get you drunk.”

“Failure’s never an option so you’ve abandoned the plan altogether, is that it?” she teased.

He flashed a tight-lipped smirk before turning to poke at the fire.

The last time they’d been in this room alone, after midnight, in front of the fire, he was foul-mouthed and feverish. Six feet worth of unwell clad in his thin cotton pajama bottoms, the gray t-shirt, and that very same dressing gown. It was 48 hours into his post-Magnussen detox and Molly had come perilously close to _feeling_ him that night. 

She still had the text, the one he’d sent from the plane as he taxied down the runway - on that trip from which he wasn’t ever supposed to return.   

> _I hope you’ll be very happy Molly Hooper. You deserve it. SH_

She didn’t even notice that her mobile had chimed until just before Jim’s image commandeered every screen in Britain. Sherlock’s message arrived apropos of nothing. Her response went unanswered.

> Are you ok? Tell me what's wrong.

She assumed the redundancy of his words were some sort of code. Not sentiment. As the afternoon stretched on, cold crept over her skin, chilly as a wind blowing in from the east. Those hours stirred up the worry she always carried for him. She called John. No answer. Then Mary. No answer. It wasn’t until later when the Watsons explained what had happened, that she understood.

Sherlock thought his text to be his last words to her. Ever.

When he grabbed her by the wrist, late on night two of his detox, her medical brain warned that he was still addled. Given the list Mycroft read to her on the way to Baker Street, he’d be off-kilter for a good four weeks. _And yet…_

She wasn't interested in listening to counsel from her medical brain.

She knew (she knew!) the beautiful boy was trying to scare her into leaving him alone, shielding her from his ugliness by any means necessary. She’d braced herself for his inevitable attack. Sherlock fired his shot in the quiet hours, when she thought him winding down at last. Unlike their previous battles, however, the combination of almost never seeing him again and his wild-eyed seduction pinned Molly to that danger zone between his knees. She was blindsided by her emotional need to care for him and the physical desire for him deep inside her. He’d almost disappeared from her life as quickly and mysteriously as he’d arrived! The medical brain was no match for her heart any longer. Or her body.

She _did_ deserve to be happy. Even if it was just for one night.

Sherlock was unshaven and soaked with sweat. Molly wanted to drown in his scent and rub herself raw against his stubble. Then she wanted to bathe him and feed him good biscuits, exorcise his demons and hold his hand and _God!_ she knew all of that was so very wrong! None of those things could happen. At least not in that order. But she couldn’t extricate herself from his grasp.

She didn’t even try.

Molly told herself she’d pull away if he got to _here_ … She wouldn’t let him get beyond this spot  _here_ … Each time he crossed her invisible line she drew another, farther up her arm. And he did not stop. She felt his pulse race against her skin. She saw his eyes go steel gray, almost feral, then his pupils eclipsed his irises altogether. She heard his breath - shallow, ragged - and Molly knew she was about to take liberties with someone who wasn’t sober enough to fix his own cup of tea without shaking.

She was a doctor, sworn to do no harm! But if he crossed that last line, if the violinist's fingers skimmed the crook of her elbow, Molly’s hands would finally, after nine years, touch his hair. She’d pull him down on top of her and steal breath from his mouth. Wrap her legs around his waist and ransack his pajama bottoms.

Beg the pirate to pillage her.

She felt dizzy.

And then he stopped. God help them both, Sherlock Holmes came to his senses because what she was thinking, what she wanted in that moment, was unconscionable. He’d been sentenced to certain death days before. He was weak. Physically. Mentally. And he was her friend.

That night, she’d been a tightly-wound bundle of heartache and quietly riotous lust. Who knew what his head was filled with. Depression and anxiety clouded his every word, action. Along with the waning effects of morphine, Lorazepam, cocaine…

And _he_ turned out to be the sane one in the room.

Tonight they needed to talk, just _talk_ , if she could keep her eyes open long enough to do so.

She’d stay awake another 24 hours if Sherlock started talking. _Longer_.

Molly took a nervous sip of her wine, the liquid loosening her tongue and turning her insides pink. “So. How are y —“

“— are you?”

“Oh, sorry." She frowned. “You first.”

“No no. You go ahead.” He picked up the bow from its resting spot on the arm of his chair and took a seat.

“OK. I’m well. Fine. Really, really well…thank you…” The sound of her voice in her own ears was overly chipper. She turned her attention the hem of her skirt, smoothing the already flat fabric.

Sherlock drummed his thigh with the bow. “Excellent! Really excellent," his tone mimicking hers. "That’s, em, good. Fine. You’re welcome.”

They avoided direct eye contact in the silence that followed, each lost to their own fidgeting until Molly spoke. “I was wonder —“

“— So, the conference then…”

She snorted out loud and a full smile flooded his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, stretching that lovely mouth wide. Molly waded in. “I suppose there’s a lot to talk about since we last saw each other.”

“I suppose there is.”

Without any prodding, Sherlock relaxed and started talking.

 

By the time he got to the events at Musgrave Hall, Molly’s heart was racing, her head swimming. True to form, Sherlock couldn’t tell a story sitting still. He jumped up from his chair and zigzagged around the room, barely able to keep his own momentum under control. Then he slid back into the chair without losing a harrowing word to pesky intakes of breath.

“…Mycroft was wrecked. Also relieved, to be sure. Finally having that secret…Uncle Rudy’s… Eurus…,” He leaped over to the fireplace, placing one hand lightly on the mantle. “Well. He needed someone to… care for him that night.” Sherlock watched her from the safety of the mirror’s reflection, back turned to her, bow still tap-tapping at his thigh.

When Molly realized they were staring at each other, he'd shifted his gaze down to the flames. She wanted to recapture his focus, be the center of it again. In the hours they’d spent together immediately following Sherrinford, neither of them had repeated the syllables pushing them apart now. Maybe they needed the same semblance of privacy they'd been afforded via mobile. Nine long years, three little words...

“We all deserve that,” she whispered. “Mycroft included.”

Those weren't the words.

Molly was still drawing invisible lines on her heart, moving the goal. If she wasn't careful, Sherlock would stop crossing. Then she'd have to live with friendship. Forever. She saw his shoulders rise, fall and she waited. He’d neglected one part of the story. _Their_ part. It was a chapter that deserved a face-to-face. No mirror to buffer them. No push-pull to deflect each other. Molly assumed this,  _whatever this was,_ between them would become easier after that phone call. It got infinitely more difficult. They were so stubborn, unwilling to take the next steps through the door Eurus had unlocked.

 _Afraid._ Between the two of them, they'd seen more blood-covered body parts than even tough-as-nails Lestrade. But _I love you_ scared them to bits. He'd spent his entire adult life avoiding it. Her fear asserted itself the moment his call dropped. She'd heard the promise in his voice, the wonder of it in her own heart. And then he was gone. Molly understood, now, that it was Eurus's plan, to lure him out on that tightrope, then cut the line. Why didn't that put her heart at ease, then, when he came looking for her that evening at Bart's?

Because her brain reminded her that _friends_  were easier to let come and go. _Lovers_ invaded your heart, did irreparable damage if they weren't careful. If _you_ weren't careful. 

Sherlock was always so careless.   

Or, maybe, she'd spent much of her life being too cautious.

Molly watched him walk over to the window and look down onto Baker Street. A light rain had started up again, coating the glass in wet glitter. She took a deep breath, exhaled and opened her mouth to speak.

“ _Mol-ly._ ” Sherlock's voice rumbled around her name. The words she'd prepared to say stuck in her throat at the sound. His tone was gentle, hesitant. He let it settle between them before continuing. “No one deserves that more than you do, _Mol-ly_ Hooper.”

He turned to face her and her heart plummeted to her stomach. Sherlock’s eyes were somber, his earlier animation replaced by a gloom that tore at her confidence.

“Molly, I’ve always trusted you. With my life. But…”

 _Oh…no._ Was it possible for her insides to fall clear through to Mrs. Hudson’s basement? She routinely hypothesized that, if she ever released herself from nine years of this unrequited love, it would free both of them to take the high road to a deeper, platonic friendship. Being on the _receiving_ end of a conversation headed in that direction, however, had never been one of her variables. It wasn't an honest omission. It was willful blindness. Molly nodded, no longer able to look at him. “Your _life._ Yes. I see. Of course. But not your... _heart_. I'm not…I understand. You don’t have to…I'm not what you...”

“What? No. No! It’s not you, it’s..." He stopped, running a hand through the thick mop atop his head.

 _Dear Lord!_ Molly felt the blood drain from her face. Sherlock had never been in a significant romantic relationship in his life - had he? - and here he was giving her the _it’s not you, it’s me_ speech! She was being punished. She'd used the same speech on Tom. She'd placed the engagement ring and the dog's leash in his hand and sped through _it's not you, it's me_. Even though it was him. No one marries someone who can formulate a 'meat dagger' theory and is comfortable enough to repeat it in public.

“Molly. I don’t trust _me_ with my heart. Most importantly, though, I don't trust me with yours.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her heart was incredibly strong, reinforced by all those goddamn invisible lines she'd wrapped around it since he said I love you. Twice. Three times if she counted his instructions to her. It had to be in order to survive nine years of maudlin endurance training. Exercise she willingly engaged in, she reminded herself.  _He_ was the one probably on his way to aortic dissection by now given the disregard he’d so often shown for his own life. His own heart. 

Molly felt behind her for the cardi, fumbling to pull it off the back of the chair. Failing.

She heard a night bus track down Baker Street on its way south, taking with it every last shred of strength Molly had left. She stopped fumbling and put her head in her hands. She had no words. No tears. Nothing. Here was the outcome she'd told herself would be best for both of them. He was offering her friendship. He couldn't walk through that door with her. He was moving aside so she could let herself out.

Head still in hands, she forced breath in and out, in and out. She knew when she looked up, looked at Sherlock, the door beyond friendship would shut behind her, He'd stand just opposite the threshold, smile fondly at her, brush a kiss across her cheek then turn around and walk away. 

They'd rehearsed the scene already...

She wanted just one more minute in that hallway before looking up. 

“You forget, Molly Hooper, I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

She froze. His words, _her_ words to him so long ago, were barely above a whisper. 

“You looked sad when you thought I couldn’t see you.” 

“It was the happiest day of my life,” she said simply, still not looking up. From the sound of his voice, she knew he needed the buffer zone. So did she.

It was his turn to laugh. The timbre of it dark crimson, smooth. Like the wine. "I'm not well-versed in this, r _elationships_...being held accountable for someone else's happiness. Although John's given me a book..."

She looked up. Sherlock's eyes were on her, as she knew they would be, bright blue even in the dim light. "Have you read it?" she asked.

"Enough to know how sad I've made you." He tapped his leg once, twice with the bow then set in on the desk. "It was never my intent to make you sad…because you do count. You count the most.”

"Sherlock." She stayed his words. It was her turn to speak. "I pushed you away, that night, because... apparently I'm not well-versed in relationships, either. Not as good as I thought. Not with this...you..."

"I'm told relationships are difficult when there's a Holmes involved."

So it wasn't just John, then. He'd had a conversation with his big brother as well. While not her words verbatim, she wanted to repay the favor, if ever the chance arose and she found herself discussing Holmesian _interaction_ with Greg. She hoped that day would come. Eurus may have had the key, but Mycroft wedged the door open for her. She took a step toward it.

“You're right you know. I do deserve to be very happy," she agreed. "In fact, I deserve better than that."

“Molly." Sherlock hadn't moved from the windows but he seemed closer to her now, filling up the room. "I’m not everything you think I am.”

“I've been aware of that for some time.”

She let the silence it linger between them, resisting the urge to soothe. He was no pirate. He always needed hand-holding. So did she.

“I’m not everything _I_ think I am.” 

Still, she said nothing.

“I was hoping you’d rush to correct me on that point.”

Molly felt herself relaxing back into the chair, the night. The space they were carving out. "You haven't read enough of that book yet, Sherlock."

He grunted, accepting her response for what it was - the truth.

"You're more than up to delivering on _very happy."_ It was honest appraisal, not her hopeful wishing.  

 "Well," he shrugged, a touch of his ego resurfacing, "I detest coming in second. I'd like to aim for  _better than_." 

"You read the entire book. I'll proctor the exam."

He crossed the room in two effortless strides, hands still shoved in his trouser pockets. She’d never in her life seen a man make mundane movements with such grace. She could watch him do anything for hours. And had. So much lab time lost to surreptitious study of his elegant phalanxes gliding over microscope knobs. So many analyses hampered by her covert appreciation of his long legs straddling the high stool.

He peered at her from under thick, dark lashes.

 _Good Christ!_ Even his obvious discomfort was beautiful.

“Perhaps we should…start over.” His voice barely registered above the fire crackling away in the grate.

“What, you mean with introductions and all? That sort of thing?”

“If you like.”

She considered his words. Start. Over. They were nine years into whatever this had the potential of becoming. To her mind, starting over implied wiping the board clean, erasing everything that had come before tonight. That provocative first meeting in the morgue. Their hours together in the lab. The nerve-racking detoxes.

Sherrinford.

The semantics were a technicality, of course. No one’s reality could be augmented to such a degree that everything before disappeared.

_Unless they were the victim of a childhood trauma._

Molly didn’t want to forget any of the moments they’d shared. _Survived._ She didn’t want Sherlock to forget either. He’d lost enough already, been forced to do so.

“How about we just, say, begin again,” she countered. “Same you. Same me. Same everything —”

“— but different results. Different _us_.” He let the last word stretch between them.

“Yes. Well…,” she stuttered. “Yes.” Molly was no longer sure what she had suggested. Or to what she now agreed. Her jet lag. His nearness. All of it, not to mention the wine, had her giddy with something close to anticipation. “Is this where I say the bit about tonight being the start of a beautiful friendship?”

Sherlock rocked back on his heels, hands still in his pockets, and considered her for a long moment. Something dark clouded his eyes, changing them from bright blue to stormy gray. Was it disappointment in her word choice? She’d meant it as a joke. God, she was always making a terrible hash out of their time together, spoiling the mood. She’d meant to timestamp this moment, define it. _Friendship_ was the safe word choice for two people with nine years of convoluted jargon to work out between them. To say nothing of their actions.

“As treaties go,” he observed from behind smokey irises, “I suppose we could do worse than draw upon the example set by a jaded bar owner and a prefect of the Vichy government. Mycroft will be pleased.”

“Mycroft? Why Mycroft?”

“Well, he must’ve made me sit through that film about a dozen times, then pester me to run lines with him.”

“Fancied himself Humphrey Bogart, did he?”

“No no. Ingrid Bergman. He’s always had a thing for Ilsa’s overly dramatic narrative arc. He can be _soooo_ tedious.” Sherlock's eye roll was louder than bombs. “If I hadn’t run the DNA tests myself, I’d have difficulty believing my mother’s repeated assertion that he and I are, in fact, blood.”

Molly’s amusement came out in one loud snort. Then another. And another. She fell back in John’s chair, laughing so hard she had trouble catching her breath. He tilted his head, not quite sure how to respond to her gasps for air.

She calmed herself long enough to take in his bewildered face - the knit brows, the slightly open mouth - and promptly started laughing again. After a second, he broke down too, all white teeth and strained shirt buttons. His laughter rippled through her.

Yes. This was good. _They_ were good. They were beginning again. Him. Her. Same. But different.

_Better._

“Yes. Excellent,” he agreed, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “I think we should christen our renaissance. You know. Make it official.”

“Trumpets and a bottle of Dom?” she chuckled. “What does the world’s only consulting detective advise?”

He met her gaze head-on, held out a hand. And waited.

A trembling settled in her belly. Sherlock raised his brow but said nothing. The tremble drifted south. She had no idea what he was proposing. She only knew that her thoughts and her body’s treacherous arousal made her a traitor to this evening's alliance.

Molly no longer cared. She stood up, reached for him.

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes,” he said, taking her hand in his and shaking it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss…?”

“Hooper. But you may call me Molly.”

“ _Mol-ly Hooper_ ,” he repeated, tongue savoring the L’s before they floated out of his mouth.

“Sherlock Holmes? Forgive me for saying so but, em, sounds posh.”

“You’ve only heard the half of it. William. Sherlock. Scott. Holmes.”

Each syllable perfectly punctuated, each landing on one of her oft-neglected erogenous zones. How was it that he could melt the backs of her knees and skim her hip bone without touching her? Her cheeks tingled with treason.

“Definitely posh,” she swallowed.

“Terribly.”

“I’m just plain old Molly Louise Hooper.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “You’re not 'just' anything _Mol-ly Louise Hooper_.”

She could feel her nipples harden just below the edge of her thin, basic bra. Without her cardi on, she was quite certain he could see them too.

His eyes didn’t move but his grip on her hand tightened slightly.

_He saw everything._

If she was a traitor, William Sherlock Scott Holmes was her co-conspirator.  _In for a penny, in for the whole posh pound_ , she thought, straightening up a bit more, arching back slightly to provide him with a better view.

Once again, she had no desire to break free from his grasp. He made no move to let go. “I was wondering,” he ventured, leaning into the space between them, “if you’d like to…have dinner — “

“ — solve crimes?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Sorry. No, I, em. I mean, yes…,” she stammered. “I mean dinner. Yes. I’d love to have — Oh!“

Sherlock pulled her to him, the movements so languid Molly didn’t immediately register what had happened until her palms met with the fine cotton stretched across his chest and his own hard nipples. Sherlock was still underweight. Mrs. Hudson’s lovingly prepared full breakfasts were no match for the recent traumas worrying his psychological and physiological health. Or his general disinterest in eating regularly scheduled meals. But there was no mistaking he’d retained all the taut sinew she’d coveted while he was sweating through detoxes. Or unconscious in hospital.

She inhaled deeply. Body heat and the scent of his soap surrounded her. God, she’d missed that scent. scotch, woodsmoke, sandalwood. And ozone. Molly tipped her chin upward as he bent down, the position bringing their noses within centimeters of touching. A lock of his hair grazed her forehead. The intensity of his eyes, so close now, was an invitation to swim in the deep end and Molly was ready to dive in. Sherlock’s free hand slid down her spine to apply confident pressure at the small of her back. She heard herself sigh as the heat of his palm flattened against the cotton. When he eased her body into his powerful frame, Molly couldn't help note that their bodies were closer than they'd ever been in nine years. Her face flushed at the feel of Sherlock's breath at her temple and the heavy, hard length of him against her abdomen.

And the slick heat between her legs.

_Ahhhh._

The sound was sensual, aggressive. Female.

And coming from Sherlock’s mobile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry.  
> Patience. There are only two chapters left.  
> 


	12. It's Complicated...

_Fuck._

Sherlock raced to identify an appropriate response to The Woman's text alert. He landed on tactical innocence. It had served him well since childhood, no reason to think the same results couldn't be duplicated now. “So. Shall we in search of dinner? I know an excellent kabob shop near Paddington Station. Stays open late.“ He pulled Molly closer, tightening his grip and his smile.

She stiffened, the dark pleasure that flickered in her eyes moments ago replaced by something cloudy.

 _Disappointment._ In him. Again

He heard Molly's brain whirl, sorting out whether to stay or to go, and he already missed the rise and fall of her breasts against his ribcage. Angling to maintain contact, he pressed into her, ordering his beating heart not to betray the commotion in his own nervous system. Then he took quick inventory of his mind palace. There had to be a bit of John’s unsolicited advice rattling around, John being the expert in awkwardness between men and women. Based upon sample-size, however, his record before Mary was less than stellar.

Think!

He failed. The ache in his chest pounded, forcing Sherlock to acknowledged it for what it was. Doubt. He'd felt it so often, lately, in Molly's presence. Perhaps he should tell her that, explain what she was doing to him... 

Why he'd done what he did to her.

Psychotherapy and desire were making him panic. Him! The world's only consulting detective!

_The world's biggest arsehole genius, more like._

Shut up, John.

He needed to consult with an expert on what to do with these emotions.

He needed Molly.

But she'd already untangled herself from his arms and was backing away.

_Fuck!_

John laughed at him from somewhere deep inside his brain. _One who could bruise you, the other who could bandage you? You’re out of your depths here, mate. Double-booking isn't really your area._

Did the Watsons have a permanent wing in his head now? If so, he’d appreciate their residency more if they’d dispense useful information rather than commentary.

He pushed thoughts of them aside. Later. Right now he had a situation on his hands that required superior strategic skill. _Our doubts are our traitors_ and all that. He'd never encountered a tangle he couldn't engineer his way out of, although Ella had thwarted him from doing so whenever he was in her chair.

Memories of Mary threatened. He'd hadn't planned for every scenario back at the aquarium.

Memories of _Molly_  threatened. He hadn't anticipated how she'd effect him at John's first Christmas party. She arrived twinkling like a Christmas window and he'd assumed Molly put the unnecessary effort in for someone else. Someone who'd encourage her snorts and laugh at her jokes. Someone who'd bask in smiles _he'd_ induced and get drunk off skin flushed from wine _he'd_ supplied. He was angry with himself for caring after he'd worked so hard to discourage the interest.

That night, he'd filed his childishness into a fine-point weapon, then fired boorish deductions at her. And she'd deflected with nothing more than creamy shoulders and quiet admonishment.

He could take John's 'bit no good' lecture but it was Mrs. Hudson's scolding the next morning that irked. Spoilt his tea.

Not as clever as he thought…at least not with Molly standing so near. Not with him wanting her nearer. And she was backing away, retrieving her shoes from under the table and gathering her discarded outerwear.

He wasn’t a deceitful person. Ok, he _occasionally_ misrepresented himself, and facts, in order to gain access or a confidence. But that was strictly to solve cases and, by turn, save innocent lives! Text alerts weren’t tantamount to the type intimacies people were prone to contrive in their funny little brains. John attached complications to his text messaging with the woman on the bus. Eurus. Mary compounded her future by omitting her past until confronted by it. They'd erected obstacles in their marriage, complications that could've been avoided - or lessened - with honesty. All those truthful conversations ordinary people are always going on about desiring to have. Then never wanting to hear.

Romantic dalliances complicated the truth. He didn't like complications. Games? Yes. Games were a distraction. 

Complications and truth didn't coexist in his life.

 _What about your messages to Molly? In the middle of the night? While she was engaged?_ Mary queried.

Upholding his end of this imaginary conversation proved to be difficult with Molly marching around the flat, making more noise than he thought a woman barely over five feet could muster without her shoes. It wasn't any of Mary's business, anyway, as she was just filling in for his subconscious. His subconscious already knew why he did it.

_Say it, then._

Those were an experiment…

_What was your hypothesis then, of this 'experiment'?_

It's...complicated.

_Ha! That you'd be less lonely, possibly more human, with her at the other end of the line?_

Later, Mary!

_That you enjoyed feeling ordinary? With Molly?_

Complications were attaching themselves to his truth. As were voices that weren’t his own. Had he not been weeks clean, he’d think himself still high off his tits.

"I should've left hours ago," she was saying, wrapping the long scarf around her neck more times than necessary. "I...should've…not playing fair..."

"Molly..."

"She's alive. That woman. Irene something...The one with no face."

"Yes."

"You helped her... to..."

"Yes."

The truth. She was. He had. The Woman, known traitor, was alive. With his help. And they were still in contact. Enough to message late on a Friday night. Or early on a Saturday morning, depending on how you kept time. 

Complication and truth had decided to cohabitate. He pushed on, adding avoidance to his earlier tactical innocence. “Yes, excellent,” he quipped. “We should head out, get those kabobs — “  
  
“— I…see. She's… that's…John said...your _heart_ …Adler.”

Sherlock rubbed at the ache in the middle of his chest. She wasn’t making any sense. Possible that _she_ was high off her tits… Statistically unlikely but infinitely better than considering the alternative. He knew how to handle the drug addled, having had so much first-hand experience.

The disappointed were much more difficult to sort out.

”Molly. Please…”

“Don’t.” She turned toward him but didn't step back in from the hall. "I'm tired… I'm jet lagged. I’m…”

"They're just texts.” Truth, again. A simple answer to a complicated history. He knew, though, that Molly required more data. Knew, also, that she'd ask for it. Perhaps not out loud, but she deserved it. He was unclear as to why the truth might unsettle her, though, just that John had said the truth isn't always received as the deliverer had intended. 

Like I love you.

He and Molly had never… he’d never… _she’d_ never… And, anyway, Molly had a fairly…robust life outside of Bart’s from what he could tell. He'd observed her in the lab smiling at a text or checking the time more than necessary. The way her eyes lit up said everything he needed to know about those texts and her clock-watching. He didn't require additional confirmation.

But he'd gone in search of it anyway when using her flat as a bolt hole. Two wine glasses left in the sink, only one of which had traces of lipstick, was too easy. As was any residual scent that wasn't hers (or his) clinging to her sheets. Conducting casual forensic surveys of her Netflix queue filled in downtime while he brushed his teeth or waited for the kettle to boil. Molly favored documentaries and musicals. When the queue started overflowing with recommendations for science fiction and action titles, he knew she was entertaining _company._

The idea that Molly would sit with a bag of crisps and elect to watch _Star Trek: Into Darkness_  with any interest in it was ludicrous.

_You were snooping._

Shut up, John.

He’d done nothing to warrant this, Molly’s abrupt, impending departure, except receive an unsolicited text message. Which he'd solicited.

_Oh, Sherlock! You still really don’t know anything about human nature, do you?_

Do you mind, Mary?

"I'm not...jealous or anything like that. We're not...even..." She waved a hand between them.

They _weren't_ even, but they'd come very close to it only minutes before, when he'd felt her relax against his body and look up at him. When his brain finally powered down long enough to take in everything her liquid brown eyes were offering. And admit that it just might complete him as a human. He still had no idea what that meant. He only knew that Molly was willing to conduct the study alongside him. That she'd teach him.

"I assumed the stuff about posh boys and dominatrixes were just jokes told by old Harrow mates at stag parties." She locked eyes with him, waiting for him to corroborate the theory so she could cross it off her list.

“Are you sure you’re not jealous? We should check your testosterone levels because this sounds like jealousy…”

She clenched her jaw. Deflection was not an option. Brilliant Molly, who worked so hard to graduate tops at Cardiff and secure a coveted surgical position at Bart’s while he was across the country, taking his uni studies for granted, bored to tears and barely passing, running recreational experiments on his mind from the comfort of a filthy doss house. Radiant Molly, tempting him with her sincere eyes and gorgeous clavicle and kindness while he unnerved with his gaunt face, big coat and dark suits.

He’d amplified his idiosyncratic characteristics to keep her from invading his uncomplicated life. Now, the truth might accomplish in one evening what he'd spent nine years manipulating.

“We haven’t had physical contact since I returned from Eastern Europe.” That was the truth.

She grunted, short and quick. “I see.”

She didn’t. “Molly. The Woman and I…”

“I don’t think I want to _see_ anymore, thank you, Sherlock.”

Probably not, but never in his life had Sherlock wanted to expose himself more. To her. He resisted the urge to walk toward her. She’d have this conversation with an expanse of carpet between them. More buffer zones. And he'd respect her. “We’ve never had sexual intercourse if that’s what you—“

“— Are we using the strict medical definition of the act? Because, if so, that still leaves a large number of… _acts_ on the table.”

He pursed his lips together, knowing it was unwise make a joke. But he couldn't keep from teasing her, to coax Molly's cheeks pink with embarrassment, then walk over to her and ask if she wouldn't mind showing him how many acts she knew about and on which table they could advance her study. Instead, he rubbed a hand over his face and stayed at his end of the buffer. "That’s not the reason —“

“ — this is where you’re going to blame your…requirements…on the corporal punishment wielded by your mother or a wicked schoolmaster?”

“What? No! Despite what you may imagine took place at boarding school,” he lowered his voice and flashed a wry smile at her, unable to hold his tongue, “and far be it for me to disabuse you of what I’m sure are some pretty racy fantasies - I did grow up in an exceptionally loving, _mildly_ eccentric, home. Recent events notwithstanding. Mummy may be the law in our household but she certainly didn’t beat her children. Although there’s still time…Mycroft has it coming.”

His attempt at levity crash-landed on the carpet.

A simple exchange of complicated information. Molly required it of him in his dreams. She did so now. He forced an exhale through his nose. “There’s a certain level of clarity that comes from professionally administered pain.” He was speaking of clarity while her face contorted in confusion. But she didn’t run and that had to count for something. “Molly, my brain never shuts off. It spins constantly. And when it doesn’t have a game to play at, it gets into all sorts of trouble.” He knew she understood that, at least. She’d administered the IVs and tested his blood when he got into trouble. Took overnight shifts while he sweat out a concoction of drugs and anxiety. And she didn’t leave his side. That, too, had to count for something.

She shifted her focus to the windows beyond him. “I suppose submitting to someone as stunning as she has to it a level of intimacy I wouldn’t understand," her response delivered without self-deprecation. She was after the truth, not a compliment. But damn if he didn’t want to pay her one. A thousand. 

Sherlock soldiered on with the truth instead.

“It’s about the pain and the resulting endorphins. Challenge accepted and met, Molly.” He watched her struggle to understand. She’d seen the bruising, assumed it case-related danger or, worse, self-administered during downward spirals. He should've told her then that the pleasure he sought at the other end of a whip or cat o' nine tails arrived chiefly from the mental exertion of survival, one that he couldn't always access alone. The Woman offered a more strenuous, less lethal (although she did her best) means of entry than narcotic cocktails - one that served him well during interrogation sessions while Lazarus was in effect. “And, yes, there is a level of intimacy in that exchange. It's a matter of masochism, not submission. They’re not mutually exclusive nor are they always synonymous..."

Sherlock stopped talking when he saw Molly's gaze slide back to his. There was no judgment in the silence. Only truth.

She nodded once and looked down at her stockinged feet. “So someone may have beaten the great Sherlock Holmes but he’s never been _beaten_ , is that it?”

He dipped his head trying to recapture her attention. “You made a joke.”

Molly looked up, forcing out a long exhale.

”Ask Mycroft,” he said, straightening to his full height and thrusting his hands in is trouser pockets. ”I’ve never yielded in my life.”

She cocked a brow at him. “Wouldn’t Miss Adler be a more reliable witness?”

“You made two jokes,” he smiled, and this time it was genuine.

Molly didn't return it though. “And we both know how I shouldn’t go on making jokes. So now I’m leaving.” She adjusted her scarf once more, slipped into her shoes and took to the stairs. Her staying to hear him out may have counted for something but that’s all he’d get for the evening. Perhaps it was all he deserved.

And maybe that was for the best. Her best.

But he didn’t want what was best. He wanted what was better than friendship.

“Molly, wait —“

She stopped short, Sherlock coming fast on her heels and almost toppling them both on the landing.

“Won’t you…I’d like you to stay —“

“— No. No more tonight Sherlock. Just…just can you… I need you to remain here, in your flat.” She looked up at him, a silent appeal on her delicate features. His fingers twitched to smooth her hair and slide down the back of her skull, come ‘round and skim her jaw. Take the tip of her pointed little chin. Tilt her face upward. Kiss her. He made an infinitesimal gesture in that direction. And she backed down to the next step. “Tomorrow. Just leave me Baker Street. At least for the rest of tonight. Until I can get a cab. You get the flat. I get the street. Then you can have all of London back. Tomorrow.”

She made it down two more stairs before the urge to have the last word overtook him again. “Molly, it’s already tomorrow.”

The door onto Baker Street slammed shut behind her.

 

Molly stalked up Baker Street in a light rain and bad mood. She wasn’t jealous. She wasn’t! It was just… in that moment, with Sherlock in her arms, after so much time wasted… God! The feel of him against her. Lean and strong and self-assured and so goddamn beautiful. The sound of his words. Promising. Sentimental. Better.

Then that noise, that low, aggro moan erupted from his mobile. There was no mistaking it. That sound thwarted Molly's attempts to hold Sherlock's interest at John's first Christmas drinks thing. She’d wrapped herself up in tinsel and longing. Sherlock pulled away from her and took Miss Adler's message in the privacy of his own bedroom.

Molly liked libraries and scones. She could hold her liquor and ride a bike with no hands. She loved charity shop jumpers and sparkly party clothes. She was an amateur with small breasts and a drawer full of white cotton pants. Sherlock clearly preferred his intimate relationships to rest on the sky high heels of a professional. The text alert was awash in his blue silk dressing gown and that woman's lacy black knickers. 

_This certainly sounds like jealousy._

But it's not!

It's just...a comparison of underthings.

She was being childish. Worse, she was making assumptions rather than basing her judgment on facts. All she had to go on was a noise.

And his words. She'd never known him to lie.

Except when he faked his death. But that was to save innocent lives!

Text messages weren’t indications of a sexual or intimate relationship. Or of anything, really, beyond friendly interaction she reminded herself, in an effort to stem the tide of her ‘not jealousy’.

_What about the texts you received from Sherlock while engaged to Tom?_

Not sexual.

_Ones that you encouraged?_

It would've been rude not to respond to his messages. He could've been in dire need of case-related information, without a moment to spare.

_At three o'clock in the morning?_

He doesn't sleep. And, anyway, he sends data as he collects it, not when it's convenient for the recipient to receive it.

_This 'data' you received being so medically stimulating that you had to roll on top of your fiance and give him the shaggings of his life?_

Shut up, brain.

It didn’t make her any less angry about competing with a practiced seductress.

Jealousy.

_Fuck._

She checked her Tube Tracker. Four minutes at Baker Street. Her body wanted sleep but her brain needed to analyze itself into a stupor. Analyze him. A ride home via the Tube would wind her down.

“ _Mol-ly_.”

The sound came from behind her, a distinct baritone that cleared distances other voices could only cover by shouting. She felt the Ls of her name roll down the street and through her limbs.

“What!” It wasn't a question so she didn't waste time waiting for Sherlock's answer. She turned on him and started advancing. “You can’t even do this for me. You cannot ever do one thing someone else asks of you? It has to be your way, always!”

The force of her anger stopped him from coming nearer.

“You said you were getting a cab.” 

His tone was gentle, soothing. It aggravated her. “So!”

“You’re headed for the Tube.”

“Again. So?!” Molly folded her arms over her chest. He was doing this on purpose, deducing her in that measured way of his. Everything always under control. Well, she wasn’t inclined to give the great Sherlock Holmes anymore clues into her psyche tonight. 

He lost control. “It’s two o’clock in the morning!”

“Jesus Fucking Christ. You really _can’t_ submit, can you? Can't leave me the fucking Tube even though you never take it, can you? It must really fuck with your ego to think of me seeing my own way home. Alone. At night! On your precious London streets. You think you control everyone. That you run this city or something with your goddamn cheekbones and your fucking hair!”

Sherlock tugged at his Belstaff collar and shot her a peevish look. "I don't even know what that means."

His obvious irritation was her incentive. Molly stormed over to him and flung nine year’s worth of frustration in his face. “The ordinary people take the fucking Tube home! That's what that means!”

A light came on in a flat across the street, staying her words for the moment.

He looked down at her, his face returned to impassive. The brilliant eyes, however, were less so. “I wish you’d stop doing that.” Gentle. Soothing. Again.

Molly’s agitation faltered at his concern but she couldn’t stop herself from delivering one final blow. ”What? Say fuck? Or take the fucking Tube? I don’t fucking need you watching over me like some goddamn...pirate or something. Apparently, you’ve got plenty of damsels in distress to look after.” She instantly regretted inviting the third party into this portion of their evening.

She launched back at Sherlock, jabbing at his chest with her index finger. “I’m fine by myself! And for the record, you live HERE! Fucking posh arse with your fucking Marylebone eccentricities… I live there,” she motioned behind him but he didn't take his eyes off her face. “So I should know that Clapham isn't Murderer's Row. It's not Brixton!”

When a second light switched on, Molly ended her rant and the rhythmic stabbing of his chest. Once again, they found themselves toe-to-toe. The fingers of her right hand flexed, wanting to lay flat against his chest. She fought them, stepping back and shoving both hands into the pockets of her mac lest they get anymore touchy-feely ideas.

A small lorry coasted down the block, rain-soaked breaks upsetting the already turbulent silence. After a long moment, Sherlock blinked then cleared his throat. “Geographically speaking, Clapham is next door to Brixton. And by all means, say 'fuck' all you like. It's not as though I could stop you when you're on a roll.”

Molly closed her eyes and breathed through her nose.

"I would appreciate it if you'd stop taking the Tube late at night."

She could feel her heart rate returning to normal, her fury subsiding. Eyes still closed, she said, “I stick to Edgeley Road. It’s gotten much better.”

“I know.”

She felt rather than heard him move toward her and opened her eyes, locking with his. “Yes. I know you know." She kept her voice below the squeal of the lorry. He said nothing. She knew he didn't have any difficulty hearing her. They were so close to one another now that the heat radiated off his body and kept the chill from hers.

“You’re slipping," she continued. "You used to be more diligent about blending into that black storefront. You know the one next to the Japanese restaurant?”

“Perhaps it's the subconscious manifesting itself in cognizant action.”

The words were a breath across her hairline. She wanted to take those fine cheekbones, the ones she’d just maligned, in hand and apologize. But she wasn't ready to. Not yet. "Why can't you just say you 'wished to be caught' like everybody else?"

His eyes, now ghost gray in the electric light of the street, dragged across her face and she felt the pull as if he'd taken her skull between his hands.

“Sherlock.” His nearness overwhelmed her. She took several steps back toward the curb. "I’m not a damsel in distress. I’ve taken self-defense training.”

He flinched and she knew he’d been sober enough that detox to remember her knee in his groin.

“Yes, certain parts of my anatomy can vouch for the effectiveness of your training.”

“You had it coming.”

“You have sturdy patellas.” The corner of his mouth turned up but he made no move to occupy the bit of personal space she’d reclaimed.

“Why can't you just say 'kneecaps'? like everyone else?" she whispered. Both corners of his mouth turned up now. "You haven’t always been there. In the dark,” she shrugged. "You were away. For two years…”

At that, he took a step toward her. “I enlisted Mycroft. He has cameras everywhere."

“Seems to be a Holmes sibling trait.”

“Molly…” Another step.

“Sherlock. I’m not angry. Or jealous,” she lied. She was both of those things but their effects were waning. He didn't lie about that woman. It was the timing of the admission that rattled her. Or maybe the weight of the truth. I love you wasn't any less complicated with more of the truth...  

“I don’t know what I am beyond tired," she said. " _You_ have a history. _I_ have a history. You have a dominatrix."

“I do not _haa_ _ave_ a dominatrix. You had a fiance! As well as sociopath!” He clamped his mouth shut.

After a moment, she asked, “Is that jealousy? Because it sounds a lot like jealousy, Sherlock. I know you’re unfamiliar with the emotion —“

"— Yes.” 

More simple honesty from this complicated man. 

The rain patted down harder, curling his hair into a rebellious mess. He looked as worn as she felt. "Your hair's wet."

Another step. Toe-to-toe at the edge of the curb. “So's yours,” he observed.

The late-night thrum of possibility drowned out the sound of the idling cab behind her. Sherlock leaned in and reached around her back for the door handle. For the first time in their acquaintance, Molly hoped he wasn't about to kiss her. The moment for that had been left back at 221b. They were no longer at odds tonight but they were both battle-weary. And damp. Kisses in the rain always looked romantic on film but reality put them in cold, wet focus.

"Hop in," he said, staring down at her. "Aarti's taking you home."  

“Aarti?" The old man's bright, familiar face smiled back at her from the front seat. "How did you...?”

Sherlock shrugged. “He has impeccable timing," the angles of his tired face stretched, once more, into a smile.

“He texted me, Miss," the cabbie offered. "Asked me to run you home.”

Sherlock raised his hands in surrender. “Because of the rain. And your jet lag. I know you can make the walk home from the fucking station alone. Hail your own fucking cab.”

“Thank you," she whispered. Aarti's cab was warm and dry. And about to take her away from him. At least for tonight. It was probably for the best. She was tired. Sherlock was still mentally and physically less than 100%. Their earlier treaty was intact. And they were adults, not frenzied teenagers.

He closed the door and ducked his head into the front, giving Aarti what looked like enough money to get her all the way to Brighton, let alone Clapham.  

Molly powered down the window. "I suppose it's redundant for me to text you when I get home, what with the entirety of the British government watching."

"Text me when you get home, _Mol-ly_ Louise Hooper."

"I will William Sherlock Scott Holmes." She powered up the window and watched him watching _her_ through the rain drops.

The cab was several feet from the curb when Sherlock grabbed the handle and flung the door open. "Scoot over."

"What?" Molly made room as he folded himself into the back seat.

"Clapham _is_ next to Brixton and it's well past fucking midnight." He said, pressing his thigh against hers. "And Aarti is a terrible driver."

"I can drop him out anywhere along the way, Miss," Aarti warned from the front. "You just let me know." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an ovo-lacto Sherlollist: Sherlock & Molly r my main meal but I routinely indulge in Johnlock & Adlock side dishes ;)  
> So, I couldn't let Irene's TLD text go unanswered. Also. It's just too yummy to ponder their sessions together...
> 
> Anyway, back to the main meal!


	13. London

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/34649012771/in/dateposted-public/)

Rain pelted the cab window on Molly's left. A full-force gale in bespoke trousers and coat reclined to her right. His long thigh muscle pressed against her leg even though the cab’s backseat offered ample space for them both.

She sat in the center of the storm, staring straight ahead.

“You, em, you didn’t need to escort me home, Sherlock.”

No response.

She kept her eyes on some unseen (but fascinating!) object on the front console. She knew he was awake, knew he heard her. The man never slept and _she_ was the one with jet lag.

It was tempting to look over, nudge him roughly,  but if she did Molly feared her expression would give her away. She was still put out by the text. Still wary of his honest explanation.

_Still desperate to melt into his lean frame._

There it was again, the emotional whiplash that accompanied their _friendship._ The closer they got to one another, the further away they traveled from the safety of 'we're friends'. But back in his flat, surrounded by the warmth of the fire and his acute _maleness_ , her body, and her resolve to repair their friendship, weakened while her desire to jump into what lie beyond friendship strengthened. He appeared to want the same thing... or, at least, he seemed to want a version of _romance_ that the great Sherlock Holmes could comprehend.

Still no answer from the massive intellect brooding next to her. "Aarti and I didn't require a chaperone," Molly chirped. She didn't like the way her voice wavered around the cavernous backseat, so she continued talking. "I mean, you and I? Em, definitely. Chaperone...," she snorted, "Given, em, well, you know earlier..." 

_Shut up, Molly. Please._

When Sherlock still didn’t respond, she glanced in his direction. He lounged against the door, watching London flicker by. He had that effortless manner she always attributed to the very tall (and posh), his ease contradicting the fact that he was, as ever, cataloging details of their ride through the quiet, soggy neighborhoods that separated Marylebone from Clapham. 

 _Rude_. She tried leveraging the inch of physical superiority she’d gained with him sprawled out, raising her chin and looking down her nose at him.

He turned suddenly, sitting upright and stealing her imaginary advantage right back. 

“I know I didn’t.” His voice rumbled, no louder than the rain hitting the back windscreen, as he captured her in that piercing blue field of vision They stared at each other, wipers beating away the seconds, until Aarti’s mobile chimed. The jarring techno beat sent them back to their respective windows.

When she was younger, Molly liked sneaking onto the little pitched conservatory roof of her family’s semidetached home. It was, to her mind, the best place for watching storms roll across Hinslowe's wide fields. Her older sister never saw the point in waiting around for something you couldn’t wrestle to the ground. No use trying to explain to Katie that she had no interest in catching the storm.

For a studious girl, Molly Hooper was abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people. She and John Watson had that in common and it was good to know that the company she kept understood without explanation.

How to explain that the slanted, rusty roof, was her gateway drug? She liked feeling her skin prickle as the air roiled with electricity. From there she progressed to uni boys. She enjoyed the way her stomach flipped as she zoomed around the dodgy ends of Cardiff on the backs of their motorbikes.

Taken as a whole, her dalliances with danger were mild at best. In those pre-London days, she’d orchestrate situations in which she might be in peril but she was always careful to plan an exit strategy. The window to her back. A night of studying that precluded her from accepting dates. Molly knew where to find all of the exits.

There was no obvious trigger for her cautious... _recklessness_. Her parents were ordinary people who lived an ordinary life on the outskirts of ordinary Cambridgeshire. They raised two accomplished daughters, taught them to work hard and contribute to society.

Her childhood was normal. Nice. Decent.

After uni, Molly moved to London, worked hard and did her best to contribute to society. Devotion to Bart’s kept her busy, too busy to go in search of petty danger. Then Sherlock Holmes blew through the doors of her mortuary, surrounded by the same swirl of ozone she'd experienced on that roof.

And he pirated her escape hatch.

When he showed no interest in (or even understanding of) her repeated invitations for coffee, Molly assumed him gay. Definitely uninterested. Safe.

She enjoyed Sherlock’s company, such as it was, on the occasions he commandeered a corner of the lab. She indulged in fantasies about his physical attributes at night. So many nights.

After years of acquaintance, he remained romantically out of reach. Maybe even clinically out of touch. Safe. _And yet…_

The day they agreed to terms regarding his use of her flat as a bolt hole, they shook hands on the arrangement. Sherlock held hers a bit longer than mere acquaintance warranted, his porcelain fingers skimming the underside of her wrist as they parted.

On the eve of his suicide, he'd summoned Molly to Bart’s roof to go over last minute Lazarus planning. Sherlock paced the parapet, shooting off final instructions to her while texting his homeless network. 

> _“Molly!" He stopped his multitasking - just stopped what he was doing mid-sentence! - and crossed to her. "I need you. Do you understand me?” He placed his hands on her shoulders and stared into her, the way he did that first day they met._
> 
> _“I…yes. Sherlock. I do. I…” She swallowed back what she’d meant to say. Now wasn’t the moment for a frivolous declaration of love. She'd just prepped an eerie doppelgänger of a  corpse in one of his suits and fine coats for goodness sakes!_
> 
> _“This plan hinges on everything working exactly as I’ve designed it.” He was brisk and preoccupied, his features took on a kind of preternatural animation, lit by the moon and fired by adrenaline._
> 
> _She shook her head, unable to form any more words._
> 
> _His voice softened and he moved closer to her. Something very much like worry darkened his beautiful face when he spoke. “My life is in your hands, Mol-ly Hooper.”_
> 
> _As he squeezed her shoulders, Molly felt the unmistakable slide of his thumbs across the bare skin of her clavicle._
> 
> _And she held her breath._
> 
> _The door to the roof swung open and two of Sherlock’s homeless associates nodded at him._
> 
> _Sherlock held her gaze one second longer then released her and strode toward the door. “My death, as it turns out, is also in your hands, Miss Hooper,” he called out, without looking back. “I'll be in touch. How does two to three years from today suit?”_
> 
> _And then he was gone._

He'd never put Molly in harm’s way, not even then. Not physically…not on purpose, anyway. Jim. Eurus. They were danger by association, not by intent.

Sherlock had barred her exit. Their safe, established friendship was her escape hatch should he...become interested in someone else. She'd have their friendship to fall back on.

Then he'd done the most dangerous thing of all. He'd said _I love you_. And he'd meant it.

Eurus may have coerced it from him, but now Molly wanted to catch the storm. The prospect frightened as much as it thrilled. Storms kick up without a moment's notice. Turn dangerous in an instant. And she was out of open windows.

Sherlock was six feet of beautiful, turbulent weather.

Molly topped out at five foot and a couple of inches.

“Why didn’t you come ‘round?" Sherlock was saying. "To Baker Street, I mean? After Mary. When I was…,” he trailed off, eyes still trained on all of London.

_Because I couldn't watch you harm yourself, no matter the reason. Because you wouldn't accept my help even if I had._

_Because I love you._

“It was a question of who needed me more,” she shrugged.

Sherlock shifted but he didn't remove his leg from her side. “No one came ‘round,” he complained, waving a hand at nothing in particular.

_Billy. Eurus._

Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, “Ah. Yes. Of course. John needed everyone.”

“ _Mary,"_ she corrected.

He looked at her then, his peevishness warring with remorse. Molly wanted Sherlock to rest his head in her lap. She itched to smooth the creases marring his forehead and run her fingers through his hair. Instead, she reminded him of their joint responsibility. "Mary tasked me with being a godparent. She asked both of us. I was looking after Rosie. And, yes, John to a certain degree.”

Sherlock's nod in agreement was almost imperceptible.

She couldn't resist the urge to soothe him. Just a little. “You had Mrs. Hudson to look after you. She's clearly up to it."

Molly followed his eyes down to where their legs touched. The corner of his mouth kicked up but he didn't speak.

"Your brother, too," she whispered, "he kept tabs on your flat from a distance. And, well, I suppose you had Billy taking care of you...if that’s what you'd call it —"

"— I wanted..."

She waited but he didn't continue.

"John’s not pleasant if he’s been drinking instead of sleeping," she kept her tone matter-of-fact. "But, he’s far and away the more agreeable companion if we’re comparing…binges."

"My sister thought me sweet," Sherlock quipped. "The night she popped by for a chat and some chips."

"Where you...?"

He shot her a look from under arched brows.

"Ah. I see," Molly nodded. "She clearly brings out the best in you then."

"I was high. And I think my sister's disqualified as a stable judge of character." He'd meant to tease but his tone was more bitter than arsehole comic.

The comforting monotone of BBC Four floated into the back seat. Molly let the cab settle into the quiet murmur as they turned onto Killyon Road.

"You could’ve called John too, you know. It works both ways." She didn't say it to chastise. It was meant to reinforce their friendship - his and John's. Sherlock didn't respond and she didn't expect him to. She just needed him to hear it.

"John and Rosie needed me," she repeated, more to remind herself of why she didn't come to Sherlock's rescue. She'd taken his _side_  the two years he was away, never exposing the secret, even as she watched, helpless, as John grappled with unimaginable grief. It wasn't about loyalties. It was now about Rosie. Even without Mary, the Watsons outnumbered Sherlock. Now that he was thinking clearly...now that he was acting more like an adult rather than a pirate, she hoped he understood. Hard to tell when he was staring our the window...

"And," she kept her voice low, wasn't sure there was even sound coming out of her mouth. "I think your sister a fine judge of character." 

His cool blue eyes, warmer than she'd ever seen them before, fixed on her. " _I_ need you, Molly." 

"OK, Miss. 59 Larkhall Rise. Here we are."

 

For a brief moment, Sherlock considered ordering Aarti to continue heading south, stopping only once the cab reached Sussex Downs. He wanted to lay his head in Molly’s lap, close his eyes and feel her hands in his hair. Once arrived in the country, he'd deliver a proper - and thorough - apology to her for everything. The entire nine years. 

"Yes," Molly swallowed.

_Was she responding to his thoughts? Or to the cabbie?_

He followed her gaze over his shoulder, toward her flat. 

"As ever, Aarti," he huffed, "you have impeccable timing."

"Miss? You good?" 

"I'm...good. Aarti." Her eyes slid back to Sherlock's face. "Thank you."

He directed his comment to the front seat but didn't look away from her. "Hold the cab. I'll be back in a moment." Hopping out, Sherlock stepped aside as she exited and started up the walk after her. He matched his long strides to her short ones then, hands clasped behind his back, he slowed down even more. The rain had dissipated to a fine mist now. If he could devise a scenario to keep her with him a bit longer...

"Sherlock? Em...do you...want to keep talking? Come up, I mean? Talk?

She was doing it again, reading his thoughts but not addressing them directly. She had a habit of doing so whenever they worked together in the lab. The frequency and depth of her insights had become so routine since his return from Eastern Europe that he often wondered if he'd spoken aloud.

"Sherlock?" 

_Yes. He wanted to..._

He nodded. "But, em, not here." Memories of her in the kitchen flooded his brain. As did thoughts of her sobbing in the lounge the morning after. He couldn't be comfortable in her flat. Not for a while. He'd done it too much damage. "Can we...do you feel like walking? A bit?" He hedged. Unlike with his _I love you_ , he wanted give her ample means of escape. "If not, because of the jet lag, we can table it for another time."

"No. I mean yes. No, the jet lag's not bad right now. Do you mind if I just run up and change? Something a bit warmer..." Molly was already fumbling for her key as her voice trailed off.

He heard it though, the little tremble of fatigue. He should just leave well enough alone. Leave _her_ alone, let her sleep. 

She could decline.

_She didn't decline._

"Of course. I'll, em, send Aarti on his way." Sherlock was moving to dispatch the cabbie before Molly had even gotten through her door. 

Now what? Strategies were easier to plan when the end game was deciphered in advance. What was his end? And what means would justify it? 

He was being ridiculous. They’d agreed to terms. _Friendship._ Of a sort. They’d shaken hands. That should’ve been the end of their evening.

But he couldn’t resist the look of her, lips stung from wine (thank you, big brother, for the gift), soiled cardi removed to expose her very thin blouse (thank you, Rosie, for being born), skin flushed from the fire (thank you, Mrs. Hudson, for keeping a drafty flat). It was a ruse, that handshake. A transparent attempt to touch her. Once her warm skin was in his palm, his body responded, ordering his muscles to pull Molly closer even though his brain warned of complications.

_I should get some of the credit, having given birth to your niece, a necessary, but oft overlooked, step in the cardi-removing process._

Mary. Again.

“How prescient of you, Mary.”

_Thank you. You know, these complications are all in your imagination, Sherlock. Like me._

He could hear the mirth in her voice, rattling his head.

“Hmmm,” he grunted. “And, anyway, why are you here? I’m busy.”

_I’m not exactly sure. It’s your subconscious._

So it was.

He didn't need her to play narrator. She'd done plenty of that subversive parenting when she was alive.    

> _“C'mon gang! It's our engagement party! Who’s ready for even more copious amounts of Champagne?” Mary hopped up. "And you, Sherlock, get to help me since your resurrection is the reason for the delay," she smirked, guiding Sherlock into the kitchen with her._
> 
> _"If you want to be exacting about it, Mary, I think I'm the reason for the engagement in the first place," he quipped._
> 
> _“Sure. Sure. Always your way," she laughed. "Well, now, she looks happy, doesn’t she? Sherlock?”_
> 
> _“Mmmm? Who? Mrs. Hudson? She gets like that where there’s Champagne in the room. Something to do with the bubbles…” He grabbed a bottle, unwrapping the foil and twisting the wire cage from the neck with unnecessary concentration._
> 
> _Mary nudged him. “Don’t be thick. Although I expect it of the slower little brother…” she teased._
> 
> _Sherlock directed a cool stare at Mary before returning to his task._
> 
> _“Molly. She looks happy.” Mary’s tone was too blithe. It overwhelmed Baker Street's tiny kitchen._
> 
> _Sherlock’s eyes darted to where Molly stood, between Greg and…whatever his name was. Her fiancé. Her face was bright, her voice cheery._  
>  _But she stood inches closer to Greg than whats-his-name. Unnoticeable, really. Unless you knew where else to look. Her face muscles struggled to hold the smile. Her hair kept slipping from the matronly barrette she’d clasped it in._
> 
> _He turned his back, putting Molly out of his line of sight. The engagement was her choice. He did nothing to provoke it._
> 
> _Or dissuade it._
> 
> _“Normal. Nice. And decent,” he punched out each word as the cork popped. “So I’ve been informed.”_
> 
> _“Ah. Good. Good for her.” She put her arm around him as he poured, her face crinkling in good humor. “So gratifying to see her smiling, isn’t it Sherlock?”_
> 
> _The look he shot at her was as pointed as her comment. “What are you implying?”_
> 
> _Sherlock was far more agitated than the engagement - of either John or Molly - warranted. He’d heard it in his tone and, clever Mary, he knew she’d heard it too._
> 
> _“Ohhhh, did I touch a nerve? Here, let me pour. You take this to Mrs. Hudson.”_

_Ohhhh! I did touch a nerve that day, didn’t I?_

Not helpful, Mary

The nerve was exposed though. Raw. Even when she was happy, Sherlock made Molly sad. Confirmation of the fact came served over engagement drinks at Baker Street. And a side order of whatever-his-name-was. 

_His name was Tom._

Again, not helpful, Mary.

Sad and upset were not ideal responses to one’s...

_Romantic overtures. You're making romantic overtures. Sherlock. You've been doing so, in earnest and in your unique way I suppose, for the better part of nine years. I only point this out because I don’t think you grasp how romance works. What with being a genius and all —_

“Now you're just being hurtful.” Sherlock interrupted, aloud. He wasn’t a monster. He was capable of making her smile...without the unnecessary contrivances of  _romantic overture_. He'd done so numerous times before. In the lab. They'd shared smiles over experiments gone awry and test results returned exactly as he'd predicted. In the mortuary. He'd coaxed snorts from her lips in the presence of spilt innards and detached appendages. Those sounds were his favorite response.

On their one and only day of crime solving. They'd shared several secret looks, like kids cheating on A levels together. 

In her flat. On the very rare occasions, they'd occupied it at the same time. They'd shared her 3 am omelets and took sips out of the same wine glass, ostensibly to keep from polishing off the entire bottle. Which they always did anyway.

Sherlock didn't make a habit drawing out those sleepy-eyed, lush grins though...

He was a grown man. And grown men didn’t compromise friendships by making untoward, prurient advances like a drunken teenager.

_Haha! Oh, I would've loved to have seen you as a teenager, Sherlock! Hang on, I'm sensing similarities in the close-to-middle-aged version..._

He closed his eyes and dropped his head back. Ridding his mind of Mary's laughter was proving difficult.  
  
_Sorry, love. I’m not that easy to shake now that I’m dead. You should talk to Ella about that._

He forced the breath out, “Right. You'll be quiet and I’ll work on not sad.”

“How’s that?” Molly's voice came from behind him, light and airy. She stood a few feet away in ordinary gray All Stars, red trousers that flared a bit, slouchy green mac. Rainbow striped bobbily jumper. She'd washed her face. It was shiny, ruddy. The bracing scent of her glycerin soap made his scalp tingle. 

And her hair was loose, falling in a sort of messy cascade around the bunched hood at the back of her mac. The way he'd imagined it in his dreams. It was not in the way friends thought of each other. But it was lovely... His ears thundered with the _whoosh_ of his own pulse and his eyes flutter shut for the briefest of seconds as he tried to still everything around him, inhale some self-control.

“Are you okay, Sherlock? We don’t have to —“

“— No!" The volume of his own voice startled him. "Yes. I’m good. _Well,_ " he corrected himself. "Really well. Shall we?”

Leading the way back toward Killyon Road, he fell into step alongside her and jammed his hands into the pockets of his Belstaff. He couldn't risk them deciding to move toward her skull of their own volition. 

He was without a plan, having spent the better part of five minutes arguing with Mary while Molly was in her flat, scrubbing herself into a damned seductress. He was being punished for nine years of hubris.

"Oh damn," she fidgeted, "I thought I had a hair tie with me. Now it'll go all barmy."

What a tragedy that would be. Molly, with her hair left untamed...

"Oh, nope!" she smiled triumphantly at him. "Found it!"

_Punishment._

He had no particular destination in mind. Pubs were long since closed. Cafes wouldn't open for hours yet. Dim sum was a good two miles across the river. How long could he keep her walking? Just walking? And what would they talk about? He was all talked out. 

They turned onto Stewart's Road. ambling by the youth club, the lock & leave and a block of government estates in companionable silence. He stole a few glances down at her, shuffling along in her soft shoes, hair wrestled into its elastic band, eyes roaming both sides of the street. She was bright and fresh, too luminous for his murky disposition.

And she was smiling.

He heard a sigh and she looked up at him, the amber flint in her eyes catching light from the nearby brewery. "Hmmm?"

"I didn't say anything, Sherlock."

 _Well, fuck._ Now he was sighing? He had to end their evening. Right...now... 

"Associates of yours?" she nodded at the two big men standing in front of the open warehouse door, pints in hand.

"Sherlock! Ho!" One called while the other came out to shake his hand. 

"As it turns out, yes. Peter. Andy." After introductions and offers of pints to go, Sherlock begged off while Molly took a sip of the offered glass, charming the boys with her questions and honest interest in their endeavor. And her snorts.

 _For fuck's sake._ Now he was being possessive of her noises!

He had to get her home before she took them up on the offer to tour the brewery and started throwing her snorts around to just anybody! She didn't even know these boys, only that _he_ knew them. The damned woman was a danger to herself. And a threat to his sanity.

"Perhaps another time, boys," Sherlock steered Molly down Stewart's even though heading back the way they came would've been the sensible option. The choice he'd just told himself he needed to make.

"Ok, then, Sherlock. And don't forget to bring your girl," Peter barked over Andy's laughter.

 _His girl._ Odd phrasing, that. Molly was no more his girl than she was Tom's. Anyone's. People didn't belong to one another. They were skin and bones and free will. Not possessions to —

_Oh, Sherlock. Please! STOP THINKING!_

Mary again. He needed sleep.

Molly needed sleep. But he couldn't stop walking, taking her as far away from 59 Larkhall Rise as possible.

Twenty minutes later, they were on the nearly deserted Queenstown Road, electric light and predawn quiet surrounding them as they skirted the park, headed for the Chelsea Bridge. They'd made only sporadic attempts at conversation since leaving the brewery. Neither of them overly concerned about keeping up the pretext.

 _A pretext to what?!_ He needed to get her back home. And he'd do so. Just as soon as they reached the edge of the bridge. He'd find a way to bundle her into a cab and send her back to normal, nice, decent. Back to the confines of a sensible friendship. Safe. For both of them. That was the dividing line, after all. Wasn't it? The Thames. Yes. She to the south. He to the north.

Except he was always drawing those lines with Molly and aways daring himself to cross them. And he did so. Every time.

He hadn't noticed they'd reached the middle of the bridge until she stopped and went to the railing. She closed her eyes and let the mist settle on her face. Sherlock's mouth went dry watching the damp as it glittered across her cheeks and little chin. When she opened her eyes the pupils had expanded into inky full moons.

"I know it's weird but I like the moody look of the power station next to all this glass and steel," she waved to the offices and luxury flats snaking the Thames from Battersea Power to the park. "Don't you?" she blinked, her lids working in slow-motion.

Or, maybe, that was his mind. 

They were the first words either of them had spoken in at least half an hour. And they made something in his stomach drop, like that first jump off a high tree limb. Terrifying. Exhilarating. He wanted to feel it again.

He took a step to the railing and breathed London in, determination filling his lungs.

Feeling Molly shimmer next him.

He needed to get her home... 

_Fuck it._

"As a matter of fact, I do." He turned toward her, hands inching out of his pockets. "I've always thought —“

Molly Hooper went up on tippy toes, slid her fingers through his hair and kissed him.

London exhaled. And Sherlock Holmes stopped thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I lied about how many chapters remain.  
> 2\. I couldn't kill all my darlings so this chapter is a tad long, I know.  
> 3\. FINALLY!


	14. Dynamics

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/34751676512/in/dateposted-public/)

Molly Hooper knew how to deliver a kiss. That was evident to Sherlock the moment she went up on tippy toes, pressed cool palms to his skin and angled his jaw to her liking. Her fingers skimmed his cheekbones moving at a glacial pace toward his scalp and in the maddening space between, he heard the water lapping the pylons below, wind creaking the cables above. He lost his sense of north and south.

Sherlock Holmes didn't lose direction, especially not in London.

When Molly finally curled her fists into his hair, his brain fizzed.

He understood the physics of kissing. In his experience, the activity was pleasant enough but it did not lead to fizzing. Ever.

He’d run multiple experiments on kissing at uni. One never knew when future investigative work would require proficiency in snogging. Test cycles began with the 134 facial muscles wrapped around the skull. The slow twitch muscles were added, along with a menu of variables: Wetness of lips, dexterity of tongues, placement of hands. Most of his male subjects relied on the dominant position - an unimaginative combination of magnitude and direction. The wrestling was instructional but their predictability soon bored him. A casual brush of his fingertips at the nape of the neck and, to a man, they caved. Their submission required less effort than a game of chess against John. And that was saying something.

Female students presented a far more imaginative range of positions They enjoyed playing with the components and were eager to share observations of their own regarding advanced techniques. Not that he was particularly interested in listening or engaging further. Still, Sherlock had been raised a gentleman so he suffered through their hypotheses in false good humor. Threshold met, he’d wedge a knee between their thighs observing that uni girls displayed the same quick acquiescence as their male counterparts - although, to their credit, they did require more active research time.

The study was abandoned soon after it began, however. The encouragement he’d received from both sexes confirmed that his mechanics were spot-on; further examination would just be gilding the lily.

He’d never kissed The Woman. The goal of their meetings was combat, not caressing.

The snogs he’d traded with Janine were pure currency; a temporary cure for a 9-to-5 girl’s 5-to-9 boredom, a necessary expenditure in his pursuit of Charles Magnussen.

Now, here he was on a bridge with Molly, desperate to capture more of her mouth but she sucked and nipped at his lower lip, making him forget where in his mind palace the kissing data had been filed. He moved his hands under her mac in tactile pursuit of her curves. The more of her body he sought out, the less of her Sherlock seemed to lay claim to. She teased his efforts, pulling away when he maneuvered for deeper access. He dragged rough stubble across her cheek. She retaliated, ghosting breath along his jaw, warm and fragrant from the beer she'd sipped earlier. Lightheadedness overtook him thwarting any counterattack. All he could do was hold onto her with his hands, his tongue. His nose.

That was a revelation, the way noses gliding over skin could send magnetic current through the body and lock two people together. Did he know about noses before? He would've remembered, filed it away...

There was too much wool between them, too many cameras pointed at them. Molly slipped her arms under his coat, spreading her hands wide across his back. Her body pressed closer but he still felt each layer of oppressive clothing. Six. Her mac, bobbily jumper, filmy blouse. And bra. His Belstaff and shirt. That simple math was about all his brain could muster. He wanted to dissolve clear through to the substratum, feel the heat of her. And he couldn't do that here, although the thought had occurred.

And then the thought was lost as she continued her sensory assault, pressing kisses to his throat and skimming his waistband with deceptively chaste fingers. He felt his cock jerk as her fingertips grazed his sides.

He was as jumpy as a teenager.

They needed to slow down the pace of their explorations and speed up the process of getting to a less public location. But that meant losing contact.

"Molly _..._ ," Whatever he'd intended to say, Sherlock lost the words in her mouth.

Molly's answer was equally unintelligible, vibrating across his lips and tongue.

He fumbled his hand over the bunched hood of her mac and wrapped his fist around her ponytail. How many times had he imagined doing this? Hours camped out at Bart's, admiring Molly from the sanity of his microscope. Her tendency to boomerang around the lab was difficult to ignore. The ponytail always bounced after her, a tassel of invitation that caused him years of mental and physical challenge. He tugged at the silky rope now, just hard enough to tip her head back. The angle forced her to unwrap her arms from his waist and grab hold of his lapels to maintain her balance.

Sherlock pressed a wicked half-smile to her forehead. "You interrupted my appreciation of the Battersea Power Station."

"Jet lag," she whispered. "And...well, you have a habit of...em...going off on tangents."

He raised a brow at her gave the ponytail another quick pull. "They're educated narratives spoken aloud so as to stimulate further observations."

"Mmm, they do stimulate," she purred into the exposed skin at his open shirt collar. "Why can't you just say that you like to hear yourself talk?"

He grunted, kissing along her hairline and retrieving his mobile. "What I don't appreciate is an audience."

“Wait, what?” Molly tried pulling away but he held her in place with his free hand, enjoying the way her half-hearted struggle felt against his body.

“Behind you. And to the right of you. Also up top," he nodded. "Oh, and over my left shoulder. As I've said before, Mycroft has access to every known camera in London. And hundreds more unknown.” Once finished, he dropped the mobile back into his coat and attempted to gain access to her mouth again.

“Sherlock!” she yipped and ducked away from him.

“Hmm?”

“Is there anywhere in this city to which Mycroft doesn’t have closed circuit access?”

He considered her for a moment. “I thought you'd never ask, Miss Hooper." Seconds later, a cab appeared. “Ah. Right on time. For once.” He held the door open and motioned for Molly to get in.

“Aarti? Where did you… ?”

“He asked me to stick close, Miss, in case you needed a ride home.”

"Did he?" She climbed into the back and held Sherlock's gaze, suspending him between trepidation and anticipation, that same rootlessness he'd felt weeks earlier on her doorstep. After he'd tracked her down at Bart's. After she'd taken him home. After he'd said 'I love you'.

_Teenager._

Mary again. And she was right. Again. Two adolescents out after midnight. Desire at war with awareness. He was rushing an inevitability already nine years delayed. He needed to respect the requisites Molly had for whatever this was to become between them.

So that it wouldn't come between them.

He hung back, leaning into the dark interior. “Well?” he hedged. And he waited. “Do you?”

Molly scooted over, making room. “221b Baker Street please."

Sherlock dove into the cab, nearly hitting his head in haste. “If you don't mind, we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Aarti made the twenty minute trip in twelve.

 

Molly fidgeted like a seventeen-year-old, giddiness accentuated by misaligned lips and bumped noses as the cab skirted the edge of Hyde Park, taking the bend onto Brook Gate like a bat out of hell. Sherlock followed her into fits of delirious laughter, their attempts to reconnect thwarted by every turn and sudden stop.

Emboldened on swigs of beer and hyper sensitive from jet lag, she'd spent their walk daring herself to kiss him, planning to make a move before they'd reached the stairs at the end of Stewart's Road. Failing that, she set a new target - the underpass on Prince of Wales Drive. Missed her mark. Molly reworked these calculations until they neared the Chelsea Bridge. When she snuck a look at him, deep in his own quiet, her strategizing took on new urgency. The bridge was the finish line and great divide. If they reached it and she didn't act, would she ever?

Fear and desire pulsed around her, forcing her hands to reach for his face. Time slowed as it had that night in the lab when she watched his fingers begin to curl around her own. She felt the planes of his skull under her fingertips, his skin cool from the mist. She catalogued every detail. Then her hands were in his hair, coarser and thicker than she'd imagined. Her knees buckled slightly at the contact and her fists curled into his scalp to keep her equilibrium. She parted his lips with her tongue and slid across the divide.

And, good fucking Christ! Sherlock kissed back, nearly knocked her flat moaning into her mouth. The resonance of it reverberated down her throat and shot straight to her core. His hands were everywhere at once making her skin pebble and nipples hard. The ground shifted, skewing up from down.

Then. He pulled her ponytail. If she hadn't the vague, aural reminders that they were in a public place - the center of London for goodness sakes! - she would've sunk to her knees at that tug, undone his trousers and lost herself to the weight of him in her mouth.

She forced out a breath at the thought.

The cab passed quiet Georgian squares and darkened Italianate buildings, all of which were a blur to Molly now. They were on their way to an appointment both had avoided for nearly a decade and unable to keep from touching one another. Sherlock reached for her just as the cab lurched across Crawford Street. Molly’s chin bounced off his nose.

"You and Aarti are intent on bludgeoning my nose," he complained, flopping down into her lap and closing his eyes.

'I swear, we're not!" she laughed. feigning sympathy. Her fingertips slid over his brow and down the sides of his face. Molly's body responded to his skin, the scent of his posh soap. A familiar liquid warmth seeped between her thighs. She looked out the window as streets she knew but could no longer name ticked by, these were the last lines to cross. They were dwindling rapidly and too slowly. Sherlock buried his nose into her body and inhaled. Later, Molly would note that had she only been granted this one, simple intimacy, it would've been enough for a lifetime.

She brushed her lips across his temple and they rode the rest of the way engrossed in their private silence, he in her lap as she stroked his face, his hair.

“OK, Miss. Baker Street,” Aarti piped up as the cab pulled to the curb.

Sherlock blinked up at her, his eyes reflecting the entire prism of blue - watery green to shimmering gray. But, for once, there was no rapid movement or intense observation. Just _looking_. The cabbie waited for a beat before checking in the rearview mirror, speaking a bit louder this time.

“Miss…Here we are. 221b. _Again._ ”

Molly bent down and whispered into the bridge of Sherlock’s nose. “Back to where the evening began, Mr. Holmes.”

He breathed into her neck. “We have a history of circling, Miss Hooper.”

“Enough to make you dizzy.”

Sherlock reached up and tucked several loose strands of hair behind her ear. The gesture made Molly's stomach flutter. She was positive he could feel the wave of nervousness from where his cheek still pressed against her lower abdomen.

“Dr. Watson tells me there’s an excellent remedy for that type of vertigo."

“You wouldn’t happen to have an opening for an exceedingly credentialed research associate, would you?”

"As a matter of fact," he hoisted himself up and hopped out of the cab. From her vantage point, she couldn't see his face. He stood holding the door open with one hand, the elegant phalanxes of his other beckoning her out onto Baker Street.

She didn't hesitate.

Once the door onto the street shut behind them, Sherlock pressed her back to the wall of Mrs. Hudson's foyer, fumbling under her jumper, her blouse until he found skin. His fingers gripped her waist and her hips rolled into him. She was too short - or he was too tall - for hard contact. She stretched upward, fisting her hands in his hair, seeking a bit of extra height. It was the soft, partially exposed skin of her belly that rubbed against his cock. Close, but not where she'd wanted him.

Sherlock was already moving to rectify their situation. He lifted and wrapped her legs around his waist. It was a collision of need and far too much fabric. He moaned something into her mouth and let go to brace his hands flat against the wall. He thrust into her, the added leverage sending jolts throughout her body. "Oh...god..." she breathed. "We...can't...do this. Here," as they both rocked into each other. Truth, however, was that Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Turner, and the entire Baker Street neighbourhood association could march through this hallway right now and, if Sherlock undid his trousers, she'd follow suit, fucking him standing up as the audience jockeyed for a better view.

Hell, she'd initiate the trouser removal.

"C'mon." He grabbed her hand and they clambered up the stairs, stopping at the interval landing to plant sloppy kisses on each other before climbing the last set of stairs and tripping through the open doorway.

Whenever Molly indulged in this fantasy, their meeting always had about it the sound of violin music, crackling fire, low murmurs in her ear. This was not a fantasy. The refrigerator kicked into gear with a loud hum. Damp, cold air leaked in from the window sills.

Sherlock released her to tear off his Belstaff but hang it, carefully, on the door hook. Ever the urbane gentleman she smirked. His grunts, though, were raw. Urgent. In her dreams, the imagined sighs were always well-controlled and sensuous. Reality forced them out as panted breaths, telegraphing impatience, need.

They'd had nine years of foreplay. What she wanted from Sherlock in this moment was stripped down to essentials: Him deep inside her. No preamble. No words. That could wait until after. After they'd crossed that last dividing line.

The ache between her legs intensified.

Molly shook herself out of the dream, kicked at her shoes and ripped off her own trousers.

Sherlock shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	15. Combustion

When he turned round, Molly stood between the kitchen and his sitting room in her ponytail, blouse tails sticking out the bottom of her bobbily jumper.

And her plain white cotton pants. Sherlock was several agonizing feet away, painfully hard and straining against the front of his trousers.

If he allowed himself to consider this moment - which he'd found himself doing quite a bit of since his return from Eastern Europe - Molly was always in her plain white cotton pants. He knew the contents of her knickers drawer, knew she had bright florals and Swiss dots and lime greens. Knew also that she had one naughty pair of black lace with a pink satin thong. But there was something so obscene thinking about her wet, soaking through the same plain white cotton she wore on any given day in Bart's lab. The fantasy now merged with reality, tightening the spring in his abdomen. He took a step closer and ran his index finger along her waistband, punching out a harsh breath on contact.

She followed his eyes and frowned "I, em...I have a black lace pair...should've worn, but em..."

_Was she apologizing!? For her pants!?_

"No!" His voice shot round the room, louder than he intended. "I mean, this...these are good. Yeah, very good. Perfect. Just really, really fine..."

_Shut up, you imbecile._

He stopped talking long enough to unwrap the elastic band from her hair, running his fingers through her scalp to loosen the strands. He pulled the jumper over her head, started folding it but she grabbed the sleeve, balled up the wool and tossed it to the floor next to her discarded trousers.

Molly smiled then went to work on the buttons of his shirt, undoing each one with quiet efficiency. He followed suit, fingers shaking slightly. He fumbled with her top one then made a slow but steady descent down the front of her blouse. Time ticked backward as more and more of her bare flesh was exposed. The creaking floorboards underfoot, the whining in the fireplace flume. All of it quite deafening. And his breathing. It filled the flat. Heavy. accelerated.

When she ran her palms flat across his nipples, Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. 

She flung her blouse over to her little pile and just stood there. He thought they must look absurd, an almost naked woman with wild hair and sleepy eyes and a man in an open shirt, belt, and trousers, socks and shoes. But he couldn't bring himself to move, to take off his clothes. He had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Or, rather, he had 127 ideas. To start. He wanted to get to each one, shower her with schemes, fingers, tongue. He knew _what_ to do...but it was theory. Practice was easier with someone you were trying to best. To impress. 

Molly was not for impressing.

There wasn't anything interfering now. No game. No pride. No sociopaths or fiancés. Not even friendship. They were standing in his flat, semi-nude, on a clean slate. Nothing between them. Except still too many clothes.

As if she heard his thoughts - and he was certain that she always did - she reached for him and undid his belt, brushing her hands over his cock, tugging the leather through the loops and snapping it off him. He heard the thud as the buckle hit the rug somewhere behind them. Then she set to work on his trousers, again with the same disregard for his erection. If he let her continue in this manner, Sherlock knew his night would be over before he'd even dropped his pants. He stayed her hands, guiding them to either side of his waist and kissing her. He stepped out of his shoes and made quick, wobbly work of removing socks and trousers, bending over and balancing first on his right leg, then his left. She was on him the whole time, lips moving over his clavicle, fingers to his shoulder blades, his chest. Her weight encircled him, bore down on him. Her skin and scent - not lily of the valley any longer. Sweat from the wool, damp from the rain, and the same earthy, musky smell he'd almost tasted in the cab. Her hands, the cool smoothness of her bra against his body...all of her was too much. He had to slow it down.

"Fuck. Molly..." He dropped to his knees and buried his face into her stomach.

 

Molly's belly quivered.

Sherlock was too much to take in here, in his flat, surrounded by his stacks of books and sheet music. And now he was on his knees in front of her, lips sucking at her belly, the exposed skin above her bra, leaving a warm, wet trail in his wake. His fingers gripped her waist and she hoped to God she'd have marks where phalanxes pressed into flesh harder than necessary and not nearly hard enough. She felt soft, pliable in his hands. He was so solid. Muscle and bone...

She needed to feel all of him but everything centered around those plush lips. She closed her eyes, arched her back and ran her fingers through his hair. The strands were no longer a mystery to her. She smelled soap and sweat, felt coarse and fine. 

His hands were under the elastic at her legs, then spreading wide over her arse. All she could think was _this pair of pants will be stretched out now_. She laughed, some ridiculous noise, and felt muscles deep in her abdomen contract. His long fingers drifted into the cleft of her cheeks then slid down to where she was slick and hot. She squeezed her thigh muscles together, trying to steady herself and capture him. Fingers from each hand dipped between her legs, teased her swollen lips. He dragged hard knuckles across her aching seam then slipped back out. 

In...Out...

A moan careened around the flat. Molly bent at the waist, wrapping her arms around his head, and exhaled a gust of encouragement across the back of his neck. If she stayed this way, doubled over with Sherlock bearing her weight and working bony fingers over her hot flesh from behind, she'd come in an instant. The friction felt too good to make him stop.

She had to stop him. She wanted to suffocate under his weight, needed to feel his thighs pushing her legs wide, then wider. Splitting her in two.

Molly fought against the tide building between her legs and stood straight. Gripping his hair, she pulled him away from her. _"Sherlohhhhck..."_ His eyes met hers, pupils blown wide, what little iris remained gone navy. That opaline skin, always so frosty even when tormented by detox fevers, finally showed signs of heat. His cheeks flushed and his lips looked stung.

She tried to form words in the loud silence when neither of them spoke, only breathed. Sherlock's mouth stretched into a tight-lipped grin, his fingers continuing their slow, steady glide, just enough to keep her off-balance, mute.

He was an absolutely beautiful shit.

"I need you to fuck me." Her words came out in a croak but they were strong and without her usual stumbling about. "Now."

 

The command startled him, coming in that same way she said his name, the hard consonants softened in her throat before leaving her lips. _I need you to fuhhhhck me._  Sherlock rushed to obey, scrambling to his feet, ripping her pants as he tried to grab her hand. Molly shimmied out of the scraps, leaving them on the kitchen lino. Fleetingly he thought about retrieving the remnants, indexing them along with his socks... She lead the way toward his bedroom. Thank goodness he still had the presence of mind to close the kitchen door. The last thing he needed was Mrs. Hudson popping up with tea in the morning while the two of them were engaged in...things. Not that her presence would stop him. He once shot up while she was fiddling about in his kitchen, fixing a cuppa.

She withheld his biscuits for a week.

Without meaning to, he captured Molly between his body and the door. The impromptu positioning was worth at least a cursory exploration. He pressed his thigh against her legs to immobilize her, then nudged her with his chest forcing her breasts to the worn wood. Her bra rasped against the chipped paint, her hands flattened against the raised grain. He rocked into her, his own pants damp with pre-cum. She pushed her bare bum backward, her pleasure echoing off the door in a keening, low-pitched whine. His cock throbbed caught at the curve of her lower back and his abdomen, reminding him how close he was to losing his mind. Her hands went to his waist pulling him closer, his to the back of her bra searching for the clasp. Molly mumbled something into the door.

"What?"

"Front," she gasped. "It's in the front."

"Oh." Sherlock spun her around and flicked the little hook. Mouth, hands, cock. He wanted to touch her breasts with everything, even his nose. He pushed her flat to the door and palmed them, testing their suppleness, got lost in the feel of her rosy tips under his hands, his fingers reddening the skin.

"Someone once made comment that they were too small." Her teasing had a confrontational edge to it. And he took the bait.

"They _are_ small, Molly, in comparison to others," he reasoned, grappling to keep his voice light, effortless but it shook in his throat he was so eager to taste them, slick the areolas with his tongue. "And they fit perfectly in my hands. See? Although I think I'd prefer them in my mouth."

"Me too." But she took his hands in hers and they were fumbling down the hall again. Probably for the best. He may be a man nearing forty but his body was wound tight as a sixteen-year-old boy's. To his relief, Molly's sense of urgency matched his own.

Her hands were moving along the waistband of his pants. He'd barely stepped free of them when she sat on the edge of the bed and sucked the tip of him into her mouth. The look of her, eyes closed, lips wrapped around and massaging his cock, was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen. She dragged the length of her tongue across his head, her mewling vibrating straight to his balls. Sherlock caught himself on the bedside table, rattling coins and last night's water glass. She grinned around his flesh, taking him in deeper, exhaling a stream of air where base met hair.

"Mmmmolly..." He gently pushed her shoulders back onto his unmade bed. His legs threatened to buckle completely. He was too close to risk any additional stimulus. 

Sherlock settled his hips between her legs and Molly arranged herself on the pillows, hair drifting over the white cotton. His brain made note of how good her body always looked surrounded by plain white cotton... He rose up on his elbows, edging up, fumbling for her face with his hands. He'd hoped kissing in long, slow breaths would modulate his excitement. It did not. He was certain she could feel the madding hum in the pit of his stomach, his skin, his shaft pressing into her soft belly. He tasted his salt on her lips, smelled her ripe wetness on his fingers.

 _Fuuuuck..._ he needed to be inside her.

 

" _Sherlohhhck_. Please..." Ripples of electricity fired off just under Molly's skin, turning her bones to jelly. She arched her body into Sherlock's, a primal signal, attempting to force him inside her. There were things she wanted to do to him, places she wanted to touch and smell and taste. But there was only one thing she _needed_ from him right now. Right. Now. 

She broke their kiss. Noses touching, she pleaded with him again. "Please."

Sherlock's eyes closed, his full weight covered her. He murmured into her mouth. Something. She felt the ridges of his pelvic bone sink into her flesh, his cock jerk between their bodies. Molly exhaled hard, her heart hammering in her ears.

His eyes snapped open, a look of pain flashed across his face. "Are you...am I hurting...are you okay?" He was rising off of her, cool air skipped between them where it was humid seconds before. Molly nearly cried, jerking her body back toward him, trying to recapture the seductive warmth of sweat and fluids.

"Oh, God, no....yes. I'm perfect. This is perfect. Please. Sherlock..." She pulled him back down, slamming her hips upward, and clasped her legs around him, inner thighs contracting around his waist. He stroked down her sides, over her ribs then lower, grabbing her arse and kissing her hard, sucking air from her lungs. He shifted just enough to stroke the silky underside of his cock against her clit.

Beautiful shit. He was toying with her. And he knew exactly how to do it, too.

She unwrapped her legs, spreading wide so she could reach down between them. Sherlock's self-satisfied smile told her he assumed her going for his shaft. She bypassed his hard-on and wedged her thumbs in the creases where pelvic bone met inner thigh, applying pressure until Sherlock's head fell forward and he groaned into her shoulder. Taking the hint, he braced himself up on one arm and guided his swollen head to the entrance of her pussy.

With other lovers, she wasn't all that keen on watching...what was going on...down there. She wasn't a prude. For goodness sakes, she enjoyed giving head. It was just that it wasn't the most erotic thing to her mind, watching someone 'send it home' as it was. 

Sherlock wasn't any lover. He wasn't 'someone'. She'd propped herself on his pillows exactly for this reason. Molly wanted every last detail catalogued. He was long and lean and gorgeously built. Age had only added more muscle to the hard angles she used to covet from behind the bulk of her safety goggles. She saw the faint outline of ribs, the shiny scar tissue just off his heart, pebbled areolas, belly button she would like to bury her nose in later...

The hair between his legs was darker than the curls on his head. But there were the familiar amber threads, coarse and catching the light from the bedside table. They tangled with her own curls, wet from his brief explorations in the sitting room, the clear liquid seeping from his tip and her own silky wetness. His stomach was so luminously pale...

He pushed in then without prelude - with years of prelude - just barely. Molly begged for more, stretching her legs and rolling her hips, torn between watching him enter her and staring into his face, his blue eyes watching _her_. He rocked back out of her and she whimpered. Words formed in her mouth, a plea, a promise but she lost them when he thrust back in. So deep inside. She had just a moment's glimpse of him, foreskin back, veins filled with blood, sinking into her puffed up lips. Then she closed her eyes and let her head fall back.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Sherlock swore wicked things and lowered himself onto her. " _Mol-ly..._ " He forced air from his lungs into her mouth, pinned her to the bed with the full weight of his body again. She circled her hips under his, feeling the stretch of him from inside out, from bones to skin.

"Wait, _Mol-ly_ " he begged. "Just...just give me a moment." Resting his forehead on hers, she felt his heart beat in her belly. Her hands went to his hair and they breathed together. 

She opened her eyes and searched his face for any distress. She didn't know when he'd last had sex, didn't know if recent anxieties were overtaxing him. "Are you okay?" She whispered. Without question, she could stay like this for hours - years - just breathing as they adjusted to each other. Her inner muscles, however, were drawing tighter around his cock. She couldn't help moving, just a little. 

"You...are so fucking wet." His voice was hoarse, barely audible and saying words to her she hadn't ever imagined. A stream of consciousness that was both filthy and sweet. He raised himself on his hands, kissed her with ferocious intensity, possessing her tongue and lips before pulling his hips back. This time he didn't withdraw entirely. He slammed back in and pulled back again. Twice. Three times. Four...

Her body met his, taking him deeper inside with each thrust. Moaning his name or syllables close to it, she wrapped her arms around his neck to keep him from ever leaving, ever stopping.

"And I'm fine," he growled, "thank you...for...asking..."

She laughed. "Good. Please...don't stop." The spring in her belly was coiled too tight for much more. The pressure of him inside her was the center of London. The center of the universe. There were moans. She heard them ricochet off the walls. There was the sharp tang of sex. She smelled it all around her. But right now Molly only lived for the slide and retreat of his cock, holding onto the hard pleasure of it. She closed her eyes, trying to delay the inevitable one last time. 

" _Mol-ly_...so close..."

She felt the tension in his legs, his back, wanted to feel him explode inside her. Sherlock braced one arm against the headboard, leveraging his body over hers, grinding his pelvis into her clit. A shock, tipped out to her fingers, toes, scalp, then the coil sprung. She cried out from her whole body, the orgasm spiraling from her abdomen, her lower back. He pressed her thighs with his, knees opening her wider than she thought possible, her muscles holding him there, coating him in her slick wetness. 

"Oh fuuuuck..." Sherlock's thrust became erratic, harder, his hips driving her into the mattress. He moaned her name in a tone lower than even his speaking voice, a sob, and he flooded her with hot, thick cum that did not stop.

He collapsed on top of her, panting and murmuring something into her neck. She welcomed him across that last line, caressing his tired legs with her own, letting her fingers drift down his back, over his arse and back up again. 

After a minute or two, he shifted, "Here, I'm too heavy, let me -"

"- No...no. Let's just stay like this," she whispered. 

"Okay." Sherlock's response was more breath across her temple than voice. 

Molly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, Sherlock inside her and on top of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	16. Morning Prayers

Molly dozed for about an hour. It was a black, dreamless sleep, the kind that can’t be sustained when one is beyond tired. At some point, she’d felt Sherlock slip out and off of her. She remembered whimpering his name. Or maybe he whimpered hers… He’d left a trail of chaste kisses on her lips, her eyelids, her neck, her shoulder...but that was all she remembered. That, and the feel of him inside her. Her breath hitched.

She exhaled through her nose, riding out the aftershocks.

“Hydrogen,” she whispered. Then, “Lithium. Sodium. Potassium. Rubidium…” Molly ticked off each alkali metal, reading aloud from his wall-mounted periodic table as though the elements were a reverent prayer. She’d examined the chart dozens of times before - what else was there to do while you watched an addict shiver and burn his way through the night? - but never from this position, curled up on the outside edge of his bed wrapped in his duvet, smelling of her own sweat and his semen.

Another aftershock.

And the unrelenting need to pee.

She didn’t want to upset the monastic hush of his room. Maybe if she recited a bit more of the chart the urge would go away. “Right then. Alkaline metals. Beryllium. Magnesium. Calcium… Damn.” She rolled onto her back, kept from looking over at Sherlock. She heard him, the relaxed, sonorous breathing played out like the last key on a piano, a low note echoing just beyond audible range. And she felt him, the marrow of his bones at a constant simmer, corpuscles carrying body heat out from his core to his limbs, his phalanxes, to be trapped in the linens.

He was naked. As was she. Suddenly Molly felt self-conscious which didn’t help her bladder. She could sprint through the en suite door, pee, then run back under the sheets. But all that rustling might wake him. Was she ready for him to be awake?

A third aftershock.

Her body was certainly ready.

Molly's mind, however, was being ridiculous.

It toyed with oft-whispered jokes of trysts - a woman in his button down shirt, another in his blue dressing gown. Molly was foolish to think she could wear his dressing gowns and be comfortable. He was almost a foot taller than she. The hems would trail behind her, collecting God knows what off of his floors. And tripping her to boot. They’d left his shirt on the floor of the sitting room, along with all of her clothes. Minus her pants. Now she had no pants.

A wave a pleasure bloomed between her legs at the memory of his hands claiming her arse and ruining her pants. She wasn’t a button-down or dressing gown kind of girl after all. She was plain white cotton pants… and, on special occasions, black lace knickers with a pink thong.

She sat up and looked over. Sherlock was on his back, head turned slightly away from her, one arm flung over his head. Molly wanted to nuzzle the faint patch of hair there, tuck into him and inhale. The other arm was across his abdomen, the muscles relaxed as he slept but still clearly defined. He’d kicked off a bulk of the bedclothes to where only a bit of sheet covered him below the waist, one leg exposed all the way to his pelvic bone. 

Molly wanted to run her tongue along his inguinal ligament...

Another aftershock.

His face was serene. The strong jaw slackened, almost translucent eyelids closed over ever-diligent eyes. Forehead smooth, untroubled.

She inched out of bed so as not to disturb him and grabbed the gray t-shirt from his pile atop the chair in the corner. She’d spent enough time sitting there to possessively consider it hers, playing chair umpire to his dueling detox personalities. She'd called Sherlock out of bounds when he turned fowl, offered quiet encouragement when he fussed through a fever dream. She thought about the pajama bottoms but, again, she was too short for them. Or he was too tall. His t-shirt covered her bits and she’d be back in a flash anyway. Best to leave it at that.

Molly exited the loo from the kitchen-side door, making herself a fresh glass of water. The little travel clock on the high work surface said 6:17 am. She’d grab another quick kip, then head home to shower and change before heading back to Baker Street for her luncheon with Rosie and Mrs. Hudson. She smiled. She’d be in a rush but the extenuating circumstances more than made up for the inconvenience.

A hazy glow suffused the sitting room, early morning sunlight fighting its way through the yellowing half-sheers and heavy drapes. Molly walked around, enjoying the quiet, picking up her discarded clothes, folding and setting them on Rosie’s coffee table. She found one shoe but not the other. She’d been in such a hurry to stand naked before him that she’d kicked it off somewhere. Probably the hallway.

She reached for the door but got sidetracked by the sight of Sherlock’s coat.

Molly buried her face into the fine wool and inhaled...

The first time she'd felt a presence on Edgeley Road, it was shortly after introducing Jim to Sherlock and John. There was nothing specific that happened that night, just an oddly comforting feeling, like someone or something watching her. Not following her in a derelict way. Watching _over_ her. Protecting her. In hindsight, Sherlock must’ve had an early premonition about Jim not being quite what he appeared. Whatever it was, she'd never experienced a warmth like that before. It was as if someone had placed a…a coat round her shoulder, a protective armor. She never got that same feeling when she was out alone during the day or when she walked with a date in the evenings.

It swooped over her only when she was by herself, after long overnights at Bart’s or following late-night call-ups to the morgue, most of which were at Sherlock's request.

Molly wrote off the experiences as childish fantasy - disembodied guardians - a way to make herself feel safe. She hadn't attributed the feeling to Sherlock. Why would she? He'd never shown any interest in her beyond professional respect at that point. The sensation became so routine on those late nights that she counted on it being there, hovering near her as soon she exited the Clapham North station, accompanying her all the way to the bend onto Larkhall Rise. Sometimes right up to her door.

And then it was gone. Just disappeared. The presence stopped visiting her as abruptly as it had started.

Her walks became chillier, even in summer. Darker. More silent.

Late one night after Bart's, about three months after Lazarus went into effect, Molly finally made the correlation. She'd started crying as she crossed the Clapham High Street, not all that unusual for her, given the circumstances. Those first few months after Sherlock faked his death were a blur of constant worry for him and sympathy for John. But on that evening, as she hit the more residential portion of her walk, something clicked, a sensory memory that traced her awareness back to Sherlock: the fragrance of his posh soap.

She’d never heard or physically encountered him on those walks but his scent was unmistakable. And she only ever smelled anything like it when she was in his company. 

Sherlock's soap mingled with the reek of a busy neighborhood gone to bed - stale beer, diesel, rotting scraps - staying just under the more pungent smells. When her brain finally registered that the scent was missing, he was already pretending to be dead.

Over the next two years, her heart ached every time she made that walk. She asked the night questions it refused to answer. She made promises to the moon if it would just give her another chance.

Several evenings later, she met Tom and two of her friends as they exited a pub on Voltaire Road. 

Next time, she'd be more specific in her bargains with the moon.

Shortly after Sherlock's resurrection, the enveloping pleasure of her nighttime walks resumed. This time, though, she was on high alert. Amazing what you _see_ when you learn to _observe_. A tall silhouette in the shadow of a parked lorry. The flash of pale skin as headlights tracked down the street. The unmistakeable swing of a Belstaff in darkened doorways next to a Japanese restaurant.

The aroma of scotch, sandalwood, and woodsmoke. Ozone.

The moon had a sense of humor.

Molly sunk her nose into the wool once more then retrieved her other shoe from the hallway.

The sun may have been making its first appearance in days but 221b was still chilly. Molly shuffled back to the bedroom covered in gooseflesh. Sherlock had rolled over. He was now facing her, eyes still closed, breath still deep. This was the time when everything changed, she thought. The frenzy of that first tumble with someone is, weirdly, almost less intimate than sleeping next to them, waking up with them. Detoxes had already forced  Sherlock and her into that kind of intimacy.  They'd slept with each other, woke up next to each other. In a way. Although it was she in the chair or on the sofa and him to his bed.

A flutter erupted in her belly as she edged near the bed. Would there be embarrassment or, worse, regret in the light of day? Should she kiss him or touch him or _not_ touch him?

As if he’d picked up on every thought, Sherlock lifted the bedclothes and, eyes still closed, waited for her to climb back under.

The turmoil bubbling under her skin gave way to a wave of anticipation. Molly eased back into bed, her bare bum fitting to the curve of his body. Sherlock reached above her head and threaded the fingers of his right hand in hers. His nose buried into her hair and he spoke to the nape of her neck. “Mmmmm…what took you so long?” His baritone rumbled down her spine, vibrating her coccyx. "I thought you’d gone down to take tea with Mrs. Hudson,” he hummed, fingers of his left hand stroking down her thigh almost to her knee then making a lazy circuit back up to play across her ribs.

Although she wasn’t looking at them, she had a clear vision of those elegant digits trailing across her skin. Pale and long, each phalanx beautifully carved as if from some rare, warm marble. Molly felt soft pads and rougher edges where callouses had formed from years of pressing against violin strings. His fingers, so wicked only hours before, sliding between her legs as he knelt down in front of her, now aiding and abetting the gooseflesh.

His skill was as seductive as his supplication.

She nudged deeper into his warmth. “This probably isn’t proper attire in which to take tea.”

“I don’t mind,” he smirked, lips championing his position.

She felt behind her for his arse. “Ha. You wouldn’t.” The slight shift of her body trapped his hard-on between her lower back and his abdomen. Sherlock moaned appreciatively.

His hand drifted under the t-shirt and over her breasts, circling one nipple then the other before his thumb began a slow descent down the centerline of her body. He spread his palm wide over the swell of her belly, pinky finger skimming her coarse hairline.

Molly wiggled her bum, the friction inviting a bit of his pre-cum to spread across her lower back. It didn't take much for her to imagine that part of his anatomy as well and what it was capable of.

Sherlock worked the t-shirt up over her head and tossed it aside.

She’d never make it home to Clapham and back before lunch at this rate.

Molly didn’t much care.

 

Until she’d left him in for the loo and a fresh glass of water, Sherlock didn’t realize how much he’d wanted Molly in his bed.

He knew he wanted to undress her, taste her, feel inside her. But he’d never allowed himself the luxury of considering her next to him - just _sleeping -_  hands fumbling over his chest when she rolled over, legs twitching against his as she dipped into REM.

It was a quaintness that belonged to ordinary people, a simple oblivion he was finding more seductive than a well-executed speedball.

He awoke to her reciting elements, whisper-soft like a religious devotion. She'd invaded his Marylebone monasticism and he went hard at the tone of her voice.

 _Beryllium. Magnesium. Calcium._ The words were a call to prayer and he was just about to worship her all over again when she stopped, swore low and kicked off the linens. When she didn’t immediately return, he listened to the movements and deduced that she was gathering her clothes, searching for that shoe she’d kicked out the door in her haste to disrobe. He had an irrational moment, doubt, thinking of her dressing and preparing to leave. The possibility chilled his veins. He flopped over to her side of the bed trying to extract as much of her residual warmth and scent as the blankets would surrender.

Would she return for lunch with Mrs. Hudson and Rosie as though nothing had happened between them? Worse, would she beg off lunch, then the lab, the mortuary, whenever he was near?

Their friendship?

He’d never wished to arrive at an inaccurate conclusion before in his life. Foolishness on his part. Molly was now back in his bed, purring as he pet her skin and pressed his hips into her bum.

“Your…em…you seemed to be…quite…in favor of my tea time attire,” she muttered, wiggling against him.

“Mmmm…NPT.”

“What?”

His hand moved down through her coarse curls, index and middle fingers kneading either side of her seam. She lifted her arse into his body a bit more in response to the pressure. “NPT. Nocturnal penile tumescence.”

“Sherlock, I know what _morning glories_ are —“

“— Ah. Good. Exceedingly credentialed research associates should have a grasp of the study vernacular and their colloquialisms.” He hummed into Molly’s shoulder blade and felt the pinch of her fingers on his arse.

“Are you planning to probe this area of study, Mr. Holmes?” she snorted.

He rose up a bit on his arm and searched her face, “Hmmm… interesting…”

“What?”

“You just made the kind of joke that would’ve tipped your ears pink only a day ago. I must say, Miss Hooper, I’m a little disappointed to see that my proximity is no longer eliciting the same ruby response it once did,” he teased, all mock seriousness and raised brows.

A flash of despair crossed her face. She fought to recover but Sherlock had already seen it flash brightly in her mahogany eyes.

He'd promised himself he'd never make her sad again…

When Sherlock returned from Eastern Europe, Mycroft handed him three surveillance files - John’s, Lestrade’s and Mrs. Hudson’s. The three people targeted for death should he fail to complete Moriarty’s plan. Ensuring their safety was as important to him as his own life.

_More so._

There was one file missing.

It agitated him that his big brother would be so thoughtless over the long course of Lazarus, disregarding his instructions to observe Molly for the time that he was away.

Follow her.

_Look after her._

If Sherlock asked for the information, he'd be tipping his hand to an exceptional card player. He wasn't even sure why it was so important that he see the file in the first place and he had no desire to pique his brother's interest. That battle was one he wished to disengage from.

Sherlock carried on as though he'd forgotten all about Molly. Operation codeword _The Morrigan Matter_. Celtic mythology had always been much kinder to women than the Bible and he could never resist a touch of the dramatic.

Reading the file after the fact would make no difference, he told himself.  She was clearly okay. Alive. Engaged.

No harm done.

Except that he wanted to pore over the details of her life while he’d been away.

Nothing more than to catch up on the comings and goings of a… _friend._

The thick envelope arrived at Baker Street several days after his return, a note clipped to the front in Mycroft’s sharp hand.

> _Sorry, Brother Mine. Forgot to pass along Miss Hooper’s file. Surprised you didn’t remind me. Nothing unusual - for a single, professional woman alone in London._

Sherlock knew that impertinence. It reeked of dates in pubs. Public hand-holding. Dinners scheduled to end with snogs at the door but lasting until breakfast the next morning. 

> _There is one small event of note. Entry #73 - about three months after your departure. Probably nothing. You know how emotional women can be. Oh, wait. No you don’t. - MH_

He tore the ribbon off the folder and skimmed through to entry #73: 

> **01:03**  - Molly Hooper identified on camera 101Bclpx at corner of Clapham High Street and Voltaire Road upon exiting Clapham Underground. Subject was alone. Subject stopped short as if alarmed. Cameras 103Aclpx and 104Dclpx did not pick up any peripheral disturbance. MI6 prepared to move if subject determined to be under threat. Subject walked several feet northeast into view of camera 108Dclpx. Full visual image. Subject appeared to be crying. No action taken. No immediate threat identified.

No, of course there wasn't any _immediate threat_ identified. The threat was several countries east having the time of his life dismantling Moriarty’s network after saddling her with his fake suicide and John's real grief.

And now he’d made a wise-arse criticism so like the one he’d delivered the day Molly introduced everyone to ‘Jim’ her new sociopath boyfriend.

Although, in his defense, his comments then, as now, were rooted in truth. He enjoyed making Molly blush simple as that. It was an ordinary pleasure, one he was determined to indulge in now.

“Ah well,” he shrugged, “I’ll have to find a new trigger.” He settled in next to her and drew her earlobe into his mouth, worrying it between his lips and teeth before beginning again. “Perhaps, say, one of my patented tangents might do the trick hmm?” Molly sighed a long, low sound like water rippling over rocks. “Oh! I know! I'll regale you with my most recent observations. You, Miss Hooper, seem to be very keen on rubbing your little bum against me. So much so that I can almost taste how wet you are when you do it. I’m going to assume that means you quite like being fucked from behind..."

Another moan from Molly, this one more urgent. Verdant base notes, less flowery top.

"I detected hints of the disposition earlier when my fingers found their way under your naughty plain white cotton pants and slid between your legs. You remember that session, don't you, Miss Hooper? I'd quite think you would considering how slippery I made you."

"Mmm... _Sherlohhhck_."

"That, I assume, is an affirmative acknowledgment," he nodded. "A fortuitous intermission in my kitchen presented itself when I pushed you up against the door and you arched back, rubbing my exceedingly hard cock with your smooth round arse..." Sherlock inhaled sharply as Molly wiggled. He let the breath go, a slow and steady stream of air across her neck meant more to calm him down that excite her.

His plan worked against him, literally. Molly reached behind her, wrapped greedy fingers around his length and made rough work of slipping him between her thighs.

 _Bloody hhhell!_ He wasn't prepared for her contributions, but he appreciated them nonetheless.

He punched out another breath and soldiered on as Molly rocked back and forth, her lips and coarse hair rubbing along the top of his cock while the slick friction of her thighs massaged the underside.

"Shzshshzmmm...I mean...I..." Sherlock untangled his tongue and spoke to her neck in a modulated cadence that wouldn't last long. "Since we find ourselves in the perfect lab setting for this type of study, Miss Hooper, my recommendation would be to place you on all fours, knead - and, perhaps, spank - your bum if that's agreeable to an exceedingly credentialed research associate."

Molly turned her head into the pillow and yelled. "Yes. Yes. Yes! Fuck me just like that, Mr. Holmes. _Please..._ "

Jesus! This talk was making him fit to burst. And blush.

"And then the...em...that is...I continue along this course of research by inserting -"

"- _Ohhh_ , no...no...no! Don't just insert," she nearly cried, "Thrust. Slam. Drive..." Molly's words were harsh, muffled breaths. "Fuck. Yes. Fuck. _Mmm...please..._ "

He lost his own thought to the heat of her coating and teasing him at the entrance to her swollen pussy. His hands fumbled down her sides, legs kicking whatever bedclothes remained over them onto the floor. At her hips he flattened his palms and slid them over the sensitive skin on her pelvic bone, sinking between her thighs and spreading her legs wide. Molly shivered as cold air swept over both of them. She shifted a bit to turn her face to his. Her pupils dilated, black orbs ringed with soft brown lashes.

Her cheeks and nose were damp. Flushed.

"Yes," Sherlock croaked, "Your narrative _does_ sound rather nice." He rolled onto his back and carried Molly over with him, her back against his chest, her head falling next to his. "But, we're already here and necessity is the motherhood of invention..."

Sherlock was so close that he didn't think he had the stamina to kneel behind, bend her over and take her. His legs were already shaky and his cock was so engorged he was afraid she'd do damage to it. He wanted to keep it in fine working order for the 124 remaining items on his _If Ever I Get To Engage In Sexual Activity With Molly Hooper_ list. He steadied her bum against his lower abdomen and took both of her hands in his, guiding them down to her core. "So, perhaps we could make an addendum to the original research and..." He wrapped one of her hands around his cock, placed the other over her clit "...explore opportunities presented from this angle..." She tilted her pelvis and slipped him inside her. " _Ohhh_ ," he groaned, "...because, honestly Miss Hooper, I'm about to come all over you..."

Sherlock controlled the pace of his thrusts with one hand on her hip. His other was atop Molly's right hand, following her lead making tight circles over the bud of her clit. She slipped her free hand between their legs, spread her fingers around her entrance and stroked his cock as it slid in and out of her.

Her lips pressed against his temple. "Ohhh....fuck me, oh, God...your fucking cock...it's just lovely...really....love...oh! _Mr. Holmes_ _ss!_ "

His hips bucked when she spoke, so straightforward, her tone sweet, her words simple, direct. Her moaning absolutely filthy. The chain inside his belly snapped. The orgasm pulsed from the base of his scrotum to his scalp, rippling white light behind his eyelids. He felt his cum shoot into Molly's greedy muscles. Both her hands now worked her clit as his drifted up to her breasts, rolling and pinching her nipples to the point where he thought he might leave bruises. He was helpless underneath her, panting and delirious as her body milked him. Seconds later, she rode out her own orgasm in a whimpering litany of words that could've been elements off the periodic chart or verses from The Book of Common Prayer for all he could make out. 

Minutes later, when her breathing deepened, Sherlock settled Molly onto the pillows, holding her until his cock softened and slipped out. He missed the warmth and safety of her around him but she was dead tired, in need of sleep. He was an addict with a new addiction.

She whispered his name then curled onto her stomach. 

He got out of bed, retrieved the blankets from the floor and moved to cover her but was taken aback. Molly's hair clung to her naked back, her bum flushed from the friction of their bodies. _Ah, lovely_ , he thought. _Now I know how to make her bum blush._

Molly's legs splayed out in complete exhaustion.

Sherlock's body was moving before his brain made any command. He dipped a finger between her legs, into the stickiness pooling there, then trailed the glossy fluid up one of her arse cheeks. Molly sighed from somewhere on the other side of sleep. He bent down and sucked the trail he'd just made, tasting their mingled fluids on her skin and leaving little red marks on her warm backside.

He planted a kiss between her shoulder blades, resolutely tucked her in before he found himself at her again.

Then he went in search of the good biscuits. Sherlock Holmes was famished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was a long car ride. i had a lot of time on my hands & words to get out.


	17. Good Biscuits

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/35110158006/in/dateposted-public/)

Sherlock retrieved his shirt and belt from the sitting room floor. It struck him that the room, same as it had always been, or at least returned to a very close approximation since the explosion, felt different now and not just because fragments of a toddler’s life were strewn about.

Over there, he and Molly almost collided with Rosie’s low table when they burst through the door, arms holding each other up as they pushed each other’s outerwear down. Here, in the center of the worn carpet, Molly stood in plain white cotton pants and flimsy bra, making light work of his shirt buttons then his belt, her face set in single-minded determination. And a smile. Not sly or wicked like someone anticipating conquest. Not dithering or coy as bashful as a teen's. When she smiled, Molly’s lips stretched wide but always (always!) the corners turned down, just a little, as if she didn’t want anyone to see how completely happy she was - ever. Whether the pleasure was derived from finding the cause of a vexing internal hemorrhage or discovering the canteen had stocked her favorite scones, Molly trapped a fraction of joy at the corners of her mouth before it could crease into her cheeks.

He’d tasted those corners hours earlier, run his tongue over her secret reserve. A jolt of residual pleasure raced through his body remembering how he’d coaxed her lips upward against his own. He smiled to himself and sat at the edge of the kitchen table, long legs crossed at the ankles, waiting for his synapses to stop fizzing. The flat was quiet except for the moans and hard breaths echoing in his mind. His cock twitched remembering the feel of Molly at the kitchen door, pushing into him with her bum and arching her back, nipples taut under his fingers…

The divergent experiences of sexual encounter, although compelling while he was immersed in the act, didn’t produce residual fizzing. Ever. Once the exercise reached its logical conclusion, his brain abandoned the indulgent post-coital reverie so prevalent in popular fiction and returned to more important matters.

Like 243 types of tobacco ash.

He and Molly had reached that  _logical conclusion_. Twice. His brain couldn't think of anything more important to turn to except _logical conclusion_ number three. And four. And five... Much like the magnetic principles of noses, this sustained level of interest in sex was a revelation. Not the biological imperatives dictated and repeated over millennia. He understood human behaviour as it related to sex and propagation of the species.

Sherlock wasn't prepared for his _own_ sustained interest or all this fizzing. 

He'd stocked his mind palace with all he thought necessary regarding sex including a full range of classic texts, clinical data, and Freud’s head games. Literary smut. Porn, too, what with it being so plentiful although he found the compromising positions of those narratives trite at best. A delivery boy? Really? The secretary who neglected to wear knickers? Dull.

He preferred to collect his knowledge in the field, not the cinema.

The summer of his seventeenth year, Sherlock approached an associate of his mother’s. She was a learned woman who appeared to understand how everything worked and eager to take on a student. Under her tutelage, he received enthusiastic encouragement and knowledgable critique but his instruction ended after only a few sessions, far before any fizzing would reasonably occur. Apparently, his _endless questions_ were distracting. It was, to his mind, a rather impolite response coming from someone claiming to be such an excellent mentor.

Several of his uni kissing partners rounded out early-phase experimentation but, again, there was no fizzing and no point to pursuing advanced study. Preoccupation with investigative work and semi-permanent residency in doss houses provided stimulation and oblivion for his mind. A schedule of self-administered maintenance kept his skills and anatomy from atrophying.

There were scattered training exercises in the years that followed. He'd sought out a published sex researcher in Edinburgh, filled in the time waiting for his return flight from Minsk with a performance artist who went by the frankly boastful name of Adam. There were trips to Berlin for... well, everyone knows what Berlin is famous for.

No fizzing.

The Woman ordered him to make the acquaintance of someone she knew in Paris.

> “I’ll leave the number for you, Sherlock. I’d do it myself but... Although you are very pretty and I do enjoy leaving my marks behind, you aren’t my cup of tea.”
> 
> “Why…would I…need to visit a colleague of yours?”
> 
> “Don’t be daft, my dear boy. Your mind is drifting to something…or rather, _someone_ …else. It's interfering with our sessions. Get it… _in hand_ or or get it taken care of in Paris.”

Had he been standing rather than kneeling, with his hands tied behind his back, Sherlock would’ve made a bigger show of declining her kind offer.

The first trip to that Paris address provided competent, welcomed relief, coming as it did so soon after Molly showed up to Christmas drinks gift wrapped in an over abundance of décolletage.

Thus comprised the whole of his sexual history - sporadic but well-informed.

Never once any fizzing.

Until approximately four hours and twenty-one minutes ago, starting with the kiss Molly had instigated and compounded by the feel of her under him, on top of him and next to him. He rubbed a hand down the front of his gray t-shirt. Perhaps it was time to conduct the definitive study on how long one's brain could sustain fizzing...

“Morning Sherlock.” 

The rattle of a tray laden with tea things and a full breakfast plate startled him out of his daydream.

Mrs. Hudson marched through the sitting room door and dropped the service down on the desk. “Thought I heard you shuffling about earlier.”

An image of Molly mere feet away, naked and spread across on his bed, floated to mind. If Mrs. Hudson heard anything from him earlier, it certainly wasn’t shuffling. “Hmph.” He rested his chin on his chest and ran a thumb along his bottom lip. By his calculations, he and Molly had a few good hours alone before lunch. But those minutes were ticking by. Best dispatch Mrs. Hudson quickly before she took a seat and started chattering…

“— so I’m surprised you’re up at all to be honest.” His landlady smiled brightly, too much so for this hour of the morning.

 _She knew._ Mrs. Hudson knew what he and Molly had gotten up to.

Down to.

_Does it matter? Why does it matter?_

Sherlock felt an irrational desire to…protect Molly’s honor.

_Where did that come from? It’s the twenty-first century, not 1895._

He kept his eyes focused on the lino…where the remnants of Molly's plain white cotton pants lay.

_Fuck._

Mrs. Hudson hummed and bobbed her way around the desk, ignoring him in favor of clearing away his notes and unloading the tray. For once he was thankful for Mrs. Hudson's alarming compulsion to tidy up. He snatched the pants from the floor, resisted the desire to bring them up to his nose, and shoved them in the back of his pajama waistband.

“Where are the good biscuits?” he demanded. “I don’t see any.” His tone was regrettable but he’d hoped to agitate her enough that she’d leave. Quickly.

Mrs. Hudson scoffed and continued with her morning ritual, opening the drapes a bit more, running a finger along the windowsills to check for dust and damp. “You’re impossible when you don’t have a good night’s sleep, mister. I’ll assume you were kept awake by all the racket.”

Sherlock was gasping for sugar and carbohydrates this morning but could do without the conversation. Unless it was filthy. And didn’t involve his landlady. He rubbed a hand over his face. The friction did nothing to dislodge Mrs. Hudson from his sitting room. Why was she here? “I thought we had an agreement, you and me.”

“What are you going on about?”

“You and me. We have an agreement. When the door’s closed, you needn’t bother with tea until it’s open.”

“Your sitting room door _was_ open." Her extreme gaiety was suspicious. "So, you didn’t hear it then, Sherlock? All sorts of commotion out on the street overnight? I’m surprised because you generally like to insinuate yourself into the middle of everything.”

He opened his mouth to respond then snapped it shut before the words escaped.

 _Molly._ He'd have to take a moment to review Baker Street laboratory protocol with his research associate. If they were going to continue experimenting, both doors must be closed. 

Addendum: both the doors must be locked.

Mrs. Hudson fixed his tea and nudged him over to his chair. “Back in my day, we would’ve called it a lover’s quarrel. All the yelling out there. Oh, and the swearing? My, my, my." Her own cup prepared, she took the seat opposite him. "Well," she shrugged, "whoever they were, the girl seemed to have a handle on her paramour from what I overheard…”

“I…I must’ve missed the entire episode.”

She eyed him from over the rim of her tea cup. “Hmm mmm.”

“So, the good biscuits, then?”

“I brought you extra breakfast instead," she beamed. “What are your plans for the morning since you’re up at it early?”

His plans included getting back 'at it' with his naked research associate, not sipping tea.

“It didn’t include eating a full breakfast,” he mumbled.

“Oh, don't be cross. The food'll do you good. Keep your energy up.”

Was she playing him? She once ran a drug cartel so she did know how to wear a poker face. Odds were his sweet landlady _was_ playing him.

“Trust me, Sherlock. You’re not completely well from your ordeal. Go ahead and enjoy the breakfast. Get your strength back.”

Mrs. Hudson was winning this card game. 

Or he’d drifted into paranoia.

If that be the case, he was again dumbfounded as to why Molly and John (and Lestrade and Mary) rushed headlong into…

_Love._

So many _complicated little emotions_ his sister said. The desire to trace those emotions back to their origin overwhelmed him. Why, for instance, was the knowledge that he persuaded the creases of Molly’s mouth to kick up instead of down so tantalizing? Why did the sound of her collecting clothes from the sitting room floor, and the thought of her leaving, make his chest ache? And how did Eurus know _Molly_  was the cause that would produce the coffin room's desired effect? He'd worked a tireless routine of convincing everyone that he hadn't any feelings for Molly beyond professional admiration and friendship. When he'd allowed his thoughts to linger over her, he'd been quick to extinguish them.

But the nighttime intervals in which she assailed him with kind words and lush skin had grown more frequent, his response to their imaginary interactions more fervent. Now, he couldn't stop thinking about her at all. Or the fizzing.

Fascinating.

“— but Mrs. Turner will have the full story, I’m sure. She’s an insomniac. Probably heard the whole kerfuffle…”

He'd spent the entirety of his acquaintance with Molly keeping her at arm's length - and well within his grasp. Had he been honest about wanting nothing to do with all she represented, he could've pushed her out beyond his reach. He'd never been honest about Molly Hooper. Or with her. Until four hours and twenty-one minutes ago on the Chelsea Bridge.

And little over a month ago when his sister forced him to exhale three words he didn't know he'd been holding on to for close to a decade.

Sherlock got to his feet and rubbed his head with both hands. It was time to clip Mrs. Hudson’s visit short. “Biscuits!” He bristled at his own irritation. He didn’t want a repeat of the shooting up incident, however, so he tacked on a nicety for good measure. “If you'd be so kind." Not only was she capable of withholding his biscuits for a week and tattling to John and Mycroft, she was adept at handcuffing him. He'd had purpling around his wrists that lasted for a week and a half because of her. 

“I really am going to speak to your mother about you.” She fumbled in her skirt pocket, pulling out a sleeve of Dark Chocolate McVitie’s. “Here.” She waved the package in his face as he tried shoving the door closed behind her. “These are for Molly, young man. I happen to know she favors them.”

“Molly? Your luncheon isn’t until 1:30. She won’t be here for hours —“

“— tell her I’ll have her trousers and blouse washed and ironed before lunch.”

Indignation and sheepishness fought for control over his face.

“Oh get over yourself, Sherlock Holmes. You two aren’t my first oversexed teenagers.” She slammed the door behind her, leaving him alone with the good biscuits.

And a naked research associate.

 

He tilted back, resting his head against the wall, eyes to the ceiling. He’d intended to sprint into the bedroom the moment Mrs. Hudson departed. Instead, Sherlock was seated across from the bed, shifting his weight trying and to find a less cramped position atop the wooden chair normally reserved for holding his clean laundry.

And Molly, on those occasions when his detoxes warranted a chair umpire. How did she survive long hours and not sustain bodily harm in this charity shop torture device?

When he’d returned to the confines of his room, he was again struck by change. Molly’s smooth breathing shimmered around the dim space. Her heady scent softened a room kitted in hard wood, metal, and glass. 

He liked her in his room.

And that was a problem. _Their_ problem.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that neither of them had said 'I love you' aloud since the phone call, as though recitation of the phrase could destroy their tenuous hold on each other. He wouldn't push her this time. He’d keep a firm grip on his own desire to repeat the words. But  _Christ!_ if he didn’t want to hear them fall from her mouth again. He’d been so strung out on adrenaline that he’d barely registered Molly’s hushed response when it finally seeped through Sherrinford's speakers. He was hyper focused on the individual syllables, not their meaning, calculating the time it would take her to utter all three before Eurus blew her to bits.

He was moved by acute stress to smash the coffin in blind rage, showing little regard for his own body. It wouldn't be until much later that he'd register the damage all that wooden shrapnel had done, slicing and puncturing his hands. In the immediate aftermath of their _conversation_ , he'd slid to the floor, exhausted. Eurus's emotional vivisection drained the resistance from his veins. Molly requesting him to _say it like you mean it_ pumped a modicum of relief through his body. He'd meant it, had been living to tell her. 

The possibility of Molly dying forced him to do so. 

She'd bandaged his wounds that evening. What had he done since to repay the favor?

Now he felt the words forming in his lungs so often, they were like breath to him. Asthmatic. His chest tightened whenever he remembered her response to his instructions  _Leave me alone_ she'd ordered.He should've done so long ago but he'd never had the strength to untether from her completely. His breathing quickened whenever her accusatory tone floated to mind  _Why are you dong this to me? Why are you making fun of me?_  The inference that he'd ever tease her in such a manner left him gasping. Over the course of the last month, his already restless sleep was aggravated by the knowledge that she'd loved him and he'd never allowed her space to admit her feelings _I can't say that to you,_ Never given her any reason to say it aloud  _You know why..._

He _did_ know why. Of course he did. And when she finally whispered the words, lips caressing her mobile as though she held his face in her hands, Molly's eyes filled with a decade's worth of tears. He wouldn't force her to say them, to hear them again.

_I love you..._

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and flipped the packet of biscuits in front of him. Once...twice…

“Is that your idea of, em, breakfast in bed?” Molly’s lids were heavy, her voice thick with sleep. His muscles stirred in spite of his brain’s decision not to crowd her.

“Mrs. Hudson’s. I think biscuits are meant more as an amuse bouche rather than a full meal, however.”

“Mmm. I see. So Mrs. Hudson then?” She curled a leg around the duvet, her left side completely bare from shoulder to toes. Although her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment, Molly made no move to cover herself as Sherlock’s eyes roamed over the hills and valleys of her body.

“Yep.” He popped the last consonant off his lips. Neither of them spoke as the sound traveled round the room. He could go to her, smother her with his body, move inside her. That's what he wanted. What she wanted, he had no idea. He'd wait for her express consent, a decade if necessary. He owed her that at the very least.

She held the bedclothes up, an invitation for him to stop thinking. Sherlock responded.

He propped himself against the pillows. Molly wrapped around him, head and arms across his naked chest. Her body was warm and still smelled of sweat and fluids. He kissed the top of her head and they settled into the muffled silence.

Outside, London was preparing for a bright, warm Saturday. Inside, they were holding steady in the space between friendship and _beyond_ friendship. This was a state of uncertainty with which Sherlock had no experience. And he wasn’t inclined to deduce the moment further. He was rather content lying here listening to the distant rumble of the Underground and Molly’s breathing.

They fell asleep for a short time, Molly draped across his body, until his mobile pinged.

“Unless it’s the entirety of the British government,” she murmured into his abdomen, “don’t respond to it.”

“Hmph. That’s exactly why I _wouldn’t_ respond to it.” He checked the message and tapped out a short reply. “Where were we?”

She rested her chin on his chest, eyes shining up at him. “I haven’t been treated to my biscuits yet.”

“Feeling peckish, are we?”

“Quite.”

After several seconds wrestling with the package, Sherlock broke a biscuit in two and fed half to Molly. He teased, tapping her nose with the biscuit then holding it just out of her reach until she pouted and begged for it. She flicked her tongue at the crumbs that had fallen onto his chest, sucking until the capillaries under his skin ruptured, branding him with little red splotches. Sherlock made no attempt to thwart her. Another biscuit. This time, the corner of Sherlock's mouth tipped up in a wicked grin. He snapped the chocolate covered disk above his left nipple. She licked her lips and nipped his skin, capturing the hard bud between the tip of her tongue and the sharp edges of her front teeth. She applied gentle pressure, then feather-soft kisses, in maddening succession. His head fell back and a strangled moan filling the room. The biscuit halves were forgotten in bedclothes.

Molly raised up and fit herself to him, molding her upper body to his. Sherlock’s cock stiffened in the warmth created by their bellies, surrounded by skin and humidity.

“You probably don’t remember when we first met…” She showered more kisses across his clavicle, from one acromial joint to the other, each of her words bracketed by the press of her lips against his skin. “…I was quite aroused by the bit of your clavicle peeking out from your open shirt collar…right here, the little dip where it meets your sternummm…” She buried her nose into the well there and breathed deeply.

As if he could forget storming into the mortuary to discover that the governess St. Bart’s credentialing board had saddled him with possessed the most alluring brown eyes he’d ever seen - sparked with amber and tipped with so much warmth - and a pointed chin that could cut him down should he toy with her authority. Only she never did. She suffered his boyish defiance with goodness and challenged his quick agitation with warranted scolding.

“You wore your Belstaff, a black suit, and black shirt. I think you did so on purpose,” she continued, her words vibrating through his chest and down to his groin. “sought to unnerve on your first day at Bart’s…”

“And you, Miss Hooper, wore the purple and white striped blouse, the one with the big collar. Also, bits of Mr. Fenton’s kidney on your right hand, if memory serves.”

“I…I don’t remember that,” she smiled then returned to her admiration of the knobby joints at his shoulders.

“Then it would appear I am the more reliable witness.”

“Mmmm…maybe. You may recall how things _looked_. I recall how things _felt._ ”

Sherlock tilted her chin toward him and pinned her with a cool stare, “Trust me, _Mol-ly_ , I remember how I felt that day.” The way his skin rippled when she walked round the autopsy table, ponytail swaying behind her. So unlike others he was required to interact with at Bart's, at Scotland Yard, at the grocer or chemist. Spunky. Quietly bold. He recalled fighting to assume Mycroft’s air of nonchalance when the blood drained from his head to his shaft, making his trousers uncomfortable. There was the annoying ache in his brain, his subconscious ordering him to _leave well enough alone_. And the twitch in his fingers at the thought of having the alluring little pathologist all to himself in the mortuary the following Tuesday afternoon. With his riding crop to hand.

He rocked his hips gently upward and this time it was Molly’s turn to moan.

“I…see…mmm…” She was slick and swollen on top of him. He wrapped his fingers around her hips but she slid her body down, trapping his cock between her breasts.

“ _Mollly…_ ”

“You know, I don’t think the clavicle gets enough love, in general. I mean, it probably doesn’t even make a top five list of everyone's favorite bones.”

He didn’t know where she was going with this line of reasoning but he could listen to her work out these theories for hours so long as she kept massaging him against her chest.

“There’s the skull, of course. You have a skull on your mantle so I’m guessing that’s your favorite bone. Or series of bones anyway —“

“As of right now? Ummm, _nooo…_ ,” he exhaled through gritted teeth.

“Then there’s the thoracic cage.” She grazed his ribs with her fingers, tickling each one before dropping down to the next. “And I admit that it’s an impressive feat of biological engineering. The pelvic bone…” Her teeth set along the ridges of his in what he now considered a customary stop for her and one he hoped she never tired of visiting. “Oh! The tib fib combo always receives a lot of interest. Lay people are enamored with leg bones because of sports injuries I guess.”

She straddled his thigh, his quad muscle tensing on contact with her soft wetness and coarse hair. “I dated an orthopedist for three months —“

“I know,” he interrupted, not keen on having an image come to mind of Molly lavishing these same attentions on anyone else. He stroked the sides of her thighs, mildly disappointed that he couldn’t taste her breasts from his position but enjoying the view of her honey colored areolas pebbling with arousal.

“Phalanxes. A very popular set of bones.” She thread her fingers through his and rocked gently against his thigh. “Also just damn fun to say,” she snorted. He smiled wide at the sound. “Yours are superb.” There wasn't a hint of coquettishness to her tone. Her assessment was anatomical appreciation for its own sake, not for seduction. But _fuck_ if Molly’s appraisal didn't make him want to come. When she leaned over and sucked his index and middle fingers into her mouth, he almost did.

“ _Ohhh_ …Molly…”

She let them fall from her lips. Sherlock trailed wet fingertips down the center line of her body to her navel before she eased back out of his reach and returned to her admiration of his anatomy.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, surrendering his bones to her skilled hands, open like a body on her slab. 

"Humerus. Radius. Ulna..." she whispered, her fingers skimming his left arm. "Axillary artery. Brachial artery..." She paused.

Sherlock flinched but didn't open his eyes. Molly's fingers traveled over his veins. "Cephalic. Basilic..." She stopped, as he knew she would.

Molly's silence hammered in his ears, admonishing him for the landmines buried around the flat - The Woman's text alert on his mobile, the loose lino in the kitchen - and the ones marking his skin. Most of the bruising at the crease and underside of his arm had diminished, faded into a muddy yellow. But fresh pink scar tissue mingled with the milky white proof of his youthful experimentation. He'd take it all back now, suffer those early years without opioid distraction, if he knew that Molly would be here with him now.

But he couldn't. 

So he opened his eyes, prepared to watch her go. Knowing that she _should_ go.

Molly's brown eyes, liquid and kind, captured him. Held him. Her emotions, like her body, were as naked as his own. She inhaled long and slow. Exhaled in the same manner. Then leaned forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him lightly on the lips. Her fingers stroked his cheeks before she bent down to kiss the crook of his arm. "I can't fix these. I can help you heal. The bulk of the work, however, is up to you. But you already knew that." She spoke to the scars. Sherlock felt her words in his chest. "And I won't stand by the next time you do this to yourself." She placed another kiss on his arm.

"I can't promise that there won't be a next time. Relapse for someone with suppressed childhood trauma — "

"I know."

Another kiss.

"Molly."

Another kiss.

"Sherlock. I just want you to know where I stand."

Another kiss and then she looked up at him.

She wasn't dangling a razor sharp ultimatum above his head. Mary's death had incurred a value on his life. Molly was the reminder that if he squandered that currency, he did so knowing the scope of the expense. There was nothing complicated about it. Or her. No challenges or games for him to work out, a peculiarity he'd puzzled over for far too long instead yielding to. Fuck what he'd negotiated with himself earlier about not crowding her. Sherlock needed to say the words. "Molly. I lo —"

"I love you William Sherlock Scott Holmes."

Weighty as it was, his named sailed off her lips and round the room, aided by the force of her full smile. He dragged her back up his body, legs once more straddling his pelvis. He rested one hand on her hip and buried the other in her hair, bringing her down to his mouth. 

"I love you, Molly Louise Hooper."

He parted her lips with his tongue, balancing on the edge of depravity for a split second before diving in and claiming her mouth with his own. Molly met his demand, grabbing his hair and leaning into him so that he bore her weight. 

She dripped silky heat onto his coarse hair and Sherlock moaned into her mouth. “I want to be inside you…”

Her hands slid to his shoulders, her lips brushing his chin then sucking at his neck. Molly slid down to settle between his legs.

“ _Mollly…_ ” His voice cracked. He didn’t know if he was asking or thanking or pleading. Of the thousands of words he knew, her name was the only word he could remember and it was question and answer to everything. He sank back into the pillows and succumbed to her ministrations.

Once again, Molly cradled his cock between her breasts. She planted virginal kisses along his hairline, exhaling through her nose, the stream of warm air drifting across his belly. She rubbed her palms flat over his thighs before cupping her own breasts around his cock, her fingers grazing the sensitive underside of his shaft. The look of her, eyes closed and enjoying the feel of her own skin, face flushed with desire, not embarrassment, was an image he wanted plastering every theoretical wall of his mind palace.

Molly dipped her chin and he was almost thankful he couldn’t get a clear view of her lapping the pre-cum off the head of his cock. He was so close to coming that the visual would wreck him. Instead, he concentrated on the feel of her voice thrumming through him.

“You really do have a beautiful cock, Sherlock.” Her tongue flicked across the top to punctuate her appraisal.

She sat back on her heels, smiled wide. He whimpered at the loss of her warmth. Her hands wrapped around him, thumbing light circles over the top. “Glans…Frenulum…Shaft…all of it really lovely.”

Her candor was killing him. Slowly. Exquisitely.

“Molly. Please…” he breathed.

“Molly please what?”

“I need to be inside you.”

“So you don’t want me to suck you into my mouth then?” Not waiting for his reply, she took him between her lips, working her mouth all the way down to his base.

 _“Jesus fucking Christ!”_ Sherlock pulled Molly’s hair, hips jerking once as his cock slid down her throat, unable to resist the seductive urge to fuck her lush mouth. Molly breathed smoothly through her nose, holding steady until she retreated, hands replacing her lips as he slipped from her mouth.

He closed his eyes and groaned.

“For someone who doesn’t believe in God, the world's only consulting detective certainly does call on him quite a bit."

He punched out a laugh. “You’re close to sending me to meet my maker.”

"Close? Mmmm. Perhaps I should stop." Her hands were still working his length, slow strokes from base to tip and back. "I don't want to lose you," she smirked.

"You won't lose me." His tone was serious, the words the truth.

Sherlock heard her breath catch. "I know," she whispered. Then she laid flat on her belly and took him in her mouth again, swirling her tongue around him and palming his scrotum. The tension built up in his his lower back, blood pumping away from unimportant organs - like his brain - to fill his cock. He was nothing but nerve endings now. When he squeezed his thighs, the sensation of her skin and bones giving slightly between his legs made him dizzy. He felt every strand of her hair across his lower abdomen and imagined them tangling with his darker pubic hair.

His mouth went dry.

She nuzzled his balls, sucking each one gently into her mouth and humming. How had he denied himself this for over nine years? She felt so good against his skin, so ripe.

His mind drifted to her scent. Rich, dark. He remembered spent magnolia petals at Musgrave, their perfume more intoxicating once they'd fallen off the branches. The smell lured him down to the south lawn when sunshine warmed that side of the house. Molly's body writhed between his legs, crumpled sheets bunched against her swollen lips generating the friction he wanted to create with his tongue. God, he wanted to bury his nose in her pussy.

"Molly." He struggled to raise himself up, he was so close. If he'd any designs on sinking deep into her and rutting until all of Baker Street heard her cry his name, Sherlock had to pull her mouth from his cock before she sucked him dry.

"Mother of fucking god! Oh! _Mollly..._ "

The tip of her tongue skipped across his perineum and the orgasm erupted, the muscles of his back spasming. Ribbons of hot cum shot over his chest and he rode out the waves with his cock nestled in the soft pocket created by Molly's breasts and his abdomen. He muttered something about staying like that forever or never leaving this room. Silly things. Ordinary things. He wanted to say all those ridiculous things to her. On purpose.

Molly swiped at the opaque fluid dripping down his side and dabbed it on her bottom lip. She smiled up at him. _Christ,_ she was gorgeous.

"Seminal fluid." She licked her lip then continued in her best lecturer's voice. "Or, if you prefer, semen - a mix of sperm and seminal plasma--"

"Why can't you just say 'cum' like everyone else?" Sherlock collapsed into a fit of deep laughter, pulling Molly up to meet him and kissing her between gulps of air.

"I'll defer to my colleague's learned position on this matter," she giggled, unable to maintain her composure. 

"Whatever the exceedingly credentialed research associate prefers. Now, let's get you into the bath." He lifted her arm and sucked at the pale skin of her tricep. "Looks like someone's been eating the good biscuits in bed. You've got chocolate all over you."

"Among other things."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you - as always - for reading & for your comments & kudos.  
> This time, for realz: Only two chapters remaining.  
> And you know one of them is an obligatory bath scene...


	18. Thought Bubbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long awaited bathing chapter - Part I.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/35710758491/in/dateposted-public/)

Dappled sunlight wavered through the opaque window; strong enough to illuminate the small space, weak enough to soften the cracks skimming over green and black wall tiles. Sadly, the same could not be said for the pink porcelain basin, glowing like a piece of hard candy near the door, or the clawfoot tub. It was a cast iron beast of a thing, hull painted a shade that, in theory, mimicked the basin. In practice, however, the color resembled the waxy coral lipstick favored by Mummy's fellow garden club doyens.

Still. Sherlock loved it, never mind the color or chips to the porcelain coating. Or that only three of the claw feet were still attached. _"I found that beauty while Frank was conducting business at a scrap yard in Barking,"_ Mrs. Hudson beamed. _"Could never understand why someone tossed it. A fresh coat of paint, a cement block under that corner and there you go! It still holds water."_ That it did. The tub was also deep enough and long enough to accommodate his tall frame; a luxury in anything less than a newly renovated property.

Someday, he'd show Rosie how to soap up the sides then slide round the rolled edge and into the bubbles. He used to do that himself when he was a child. He and Mycroft.

Not Mycroft.

 _Eurus._ It was Eurus in the bath with him. Mummy had stepped into the hall for 'just a moment' and Eurus dared him to do it. So he did. Of course he did. Sherlock idolized Mycroft, wanted to be the clever, daring big brother to Eurus. They soaped up the sides together and when Eurus counted down _'Three! Two! One!'_ she pushed him harder than necessary. He slipped round the edge, hit his head on the wall and went under the water.

He didn't come up. His vision went black for a moment, maybe longer, and his limbs felt weighted, too heavy to move. He sank down, down to the cool porcelain, flat on his back. When he opened his eyes, Eurus's little face hovered above him. Her features shifted with the water's movements. His heartbeat kept time with her singing, a dull thud matching her warbled echo, bouncing off the curved bottom of the tub. _This must be what the sirens sound like,_ he thought. A fuzzy lullaby calling him out to sea... He was content just to listen until the burning sensation in his lungs forced him to gasp for air. Water flooded his mouth, his nostrils, stinging his throat.

A scream curdled under the water's surface. He knew it wasn't coming from him. He couldn't make sound come out for all the water he'd gulped. It wasn't Eurus either; she hadn't stopped singing. Then hands were grabbing, struggling to pull him up over the edge and onto the floor. Mummy. She pinched his nose and blew air into him. He remembered thinking that he'd turned into a balloon. He drifted up, could see his body sprawled on the warped hardwood, eyes closed, arms and legs gone limp. Mummy yelled for his father. They sat him upright and beat on his back until he vomited soapy water all over himself. His parents ordered Mycroft to get Eurus out of the bath and into her pajamas. Sherlock remembered being wrapped in a blue terry towel, a bit scratchy, the way linens dried on the line usually are, and crushed to Mummy's chest. He wanted to tell her that he was okay, that she could stop crying because they were just playing and he could breathe now without coughing and...

But he started crying, too, and the words wouldn't come out.

His father left for the city several hours later to meet with Uncle Rudy. Sherlock slept with Mummy that night.

Eurus slept alone.

The sudden memory didn't strike him like a blow as the others had. It wafted in on a shaft of sunlight and settled just under the sound of water gurgling from the tap. Why was that? He'd had numerous recollections since Sherrinford but they'd slammed into him, knocked the air from his lungs. The images came unbidden while he was at his violin or microscope. Alone. The details flickered like home movies in which he was cameraman and star, and they rendered him useless until he rode the scenes out. Like a migraine.

Or a fix.

This time, however, he'd stayed calm, remained in control; an observer taking note, not an actor reprising a role.

Sherlock sat on the rolled edge of the tub staring at the water, the last frames of his latest memory playing across its surface as though on a projection screen. He traced a methodical path back to the scenes so that they could be recalled later, corroborated with Mycroft, possibly his parents, at one of their now-mandatory family dinners. He'd dissect with Ella. Then he'd find room for it in his mind palace, alongside the others he'd already stumbled upon and those still to come. No lock and key this time, no celluloid disintegration. Just a high shelf. Accessible - not buried - should Eurus ever be ready to...

He fiddled with the taps until the temperature was to his liking - steaming but not life threatening. Then he remembered the bath he prepared was for Molly, not himself. He wasn't alone.

_Molly._

Two syllables that fell from his lips every day since his return from Eastern Europe. _Ask Molly when the new gas chromatograph would be installed. Did Molly file her vitreous humor report yet on the eyeball found in Bexleyheath? Was there any coffee left, Molly?_

Ordinary notes to self. Routine inquiries.

Pleasantries. Of a sort.

Two syllables that bore the brunt of his detoxing vitriol. _Ah, Governess Molly. Right on time for the change of shift._  And that's when he was being...pleasant. _Leave me the fuck alone, Molly. Please._

Lately, however... _Don’t leave me alone, Molly. Please._

John’s words - and her name - were on semi-permanent loop, vibrating inside his head like the low, clear tone of a church bell. A call to prayer and a talisman for exorcising his demons.

_She’s out there._

Yes, John. Closer than you thought. The whole time. _Longer._

He’d pulled her in with well-executed accidents; a brush to the nape of her neck as he reached for a fresh bottle of fixative, the one that always seemed to be on the shelf above her head. Sherlock's fingertips threatened to ignore his strict orders to leave well enough alone. On several occasions, he came too close to resting his hand on Molly's shoulder and coaxing her to his chest, tucking her under his coat and smuggling her to Baker Street. He'd pushed her out with methodical restraint; a congratulatory peck on the cheek in a drafty staircase. He pulled away before the blush crept up her neck, warmed her cheek and his lips. Days later, after he'd met...Tom...the bitterness of that kiss still lingered.

Now Molly was in his kitchen. Only moments ago, in his bed. Before that, the sitting room, Aarti’s cab, Chelsea Bridge. And all the years prior, at his fingertips. No closer. But no further, either.

Had she not surprised him, kissed him first, he would've given his fingers full rein. He'd reached the end of the tether and was so very tired of pushing, pulling.

He wanted to hold.

_She likes you._

Yes, John, she does. _'It’s true, Sherlock. It's always been true.'_ And he’d known it even before she'd whispered the words. Of course he did. He felt it, couldn't stop his body from reacting to her glowing neon gestures. Her pealing snorts. Her tepid coffee. Her terrible jokes. He burned white hot when she was near, turned positively Hyperborean when she wasn’t; six feet of frosty disposition over an already icy interior.

When she wasn't bobbing around the lab, Sherlock's moods swung from general agitation to trenchant melancholy and didn't stop spiraling until he'd landed at utterly bereft. Most of the juniors (except formidable Agatha, of course), clamored for the safety of morgue duty on days when Molly was absent from the lab.

_It’s not just your body or your mind though, is it, Sherlock?_

He punched out a breath knowing full well that, imaginary though she may be, Mary would wait for his answer.

No, Mary, not just my body or my mind.

_Say it, then._

It doesn’t flow as easily from my mouth as it does yours or John’s.

_Molly’s._

Yes. Molly’s. Especially Molly's.

 _Everyone has one, Sherlock. Even you_.

The data's proven inconclusive.

_Oh, don't be insolent. You know what I mean._

Sherlock exhaled the words and the memory. "I'd been reliably informed that I don't have one."

Mary laughed in that full-throttle way of hers, loud and amused. _That data came from people who'd had the 'pleasure' of interacting with you because of a criminal investigation._

Couldn't he turn down the amusement level in her voice? He could hear Mary's eyes roll.

_Ha! You're one to talk about conforming! That's why we make such an excellent pair inside your head._

You and me?

_John and me._

Sherlock kept quiet. Imaginary Mary did not.  _Anyway. They don’t know you, Sherlock, those who deal with you on a professional level._

A beat passed, as though she weighed her words before speaking. Or was it him, treading lightly over his thoughts, before allowing Mary to give them a voice?

_Even Moriarty knew you._

Hmph. There it was, heavy as a boulder. "Takes one to know one and all that," he murmured. Even dead, Sherlock couldn't outpace Moriarty, a sickness so close to his own. To be fair, Moriarty didn't come by the knowledge on his own. He and Sherlock shared the same benefactor. "Mycroft knows me. He’s always been a dependable witness to my character…"

_Arsehole that he is, absolute rubbish in all things brotherly, even he knows it's not true. Maybe more so than the rest of us._

Sherlock swallowed hard. "Except Molly. She's always been able to see through me..."

_Say it, then. Not for me. Not for John. Not even for Molly. Say it for no one other than yourself._

"My heart." His voice faded below the sound of water slapping against porcelain. Those words unlocked fairy doors in tree trunks and mushroom houses. Fantasies in which he did not believe…before. Before Eurus blew the hinges off his own hidden door. "My heart," he repeated, closing his eyes as the muscle in his chest pumped faster, desperate to replace the hubris his starving body had survived on for so long with a fresh flow of humility. Doubt.

Ordinariness.

Oblivion had been the nutrient of choice for much of his adult life; the game or the needle, it didn't matter which so long as there was a steady supply. Now he selfishly considered replacing both with Molly. Wasn't he still just the addict, after all, one with years of suppressed memories and family trauma with which to contend? Reasons for his addiction? Yes. And no. Would that he could pass along the root cause of his predilection for recklessness to Uncle Rudy or Mycroft. Ultimately, though, the responsibility for his habitual tendencies belonged to him. He'd accepted that long ago. _I made me._

The youthful hubris of not caring, not having to care.

Not wanting to care.

Did he care for Mummy and Father and Mycroft back when it was just the four of them? Of course. But the tedious familial love 'real' people routinely sought in their 'real' lives was easy for him to sidestep. Because he'd received so much of it? Had his adolescence been filled with so much _ordinariness_ that he didn't recognize it? Or took it for granted? Aside from...everything else, was life in Sussex so very _normal_? A flash, then, behind his eyelids and the rapid movement of another memory exploded in his mind. Mummy baking cakes - birthdays were triple chocolate for him, Lemon Bundt for Mycroft (as well as a glazed fruit tart and grandmother's shortbread); Father bundling everyone up for a mini-break to Brighton; a ride on the carousel, hours outsmarting the 2p pushers with simple physics, days at the beach swimming as far out as he could. Afternoons tempting rip currents, worrying his parents. Just the four of them. Whether by Mycroft's editing or his own reprogramming, Eurus had been erased, along with all the ordinariness of his childhood.

The film spun off its spool and the lamp sparked out. Those early years were advancing on him, reframing his role as a son, a brother. He'd been a perpetual child to Mummy, a delightful mystery to Father, a supreme annoyance to Mycroft.

An enemy to Eurus.

What was he to John and Rosie?

What might he become to Eurus? 

To Molly? 

Why did it matter so much now?

When he'd reconnected with Mrs. Hudson, met Molly and began flat sharing with John in such rapid succession, he thought his heart palpitations a complication born from extended intravenous drug use. New anxieties poured into his brain on a near-daily basis. _All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage_.

Then Lestrade began taking up space. The disquiet he'd suffered when the DI's life was threatened crept up over the parapet of Bart's roof, then ran into him at full speed. How had that happened?

And Mary. He cared for her, selfishly, in the moment she justified his reasoning for excluding John from Lazarus. She quickly overrode his early egocentricity with her genuine love, always so much of it, for John first, him second - no matter how much he secretly vied to supersede John for her daily attentions.

Mary howled with delight. _You really think your actions to that end were all that covert, Sherlock? You're more transparent than a plate glass window!_

He opened his eyes and leveled her with his most fearsome stare before realizing how pointless it was, trying to intimidate a dead woman.

_And a trained assassin to boot!_

Sherlock pursed his lips, exhaling through his nose. He was never one for following Mycroft's lessons to the letter. And it had cost him. Cost John and Rosie. He didn't just care for Rosie. He loved her. Full stop. She was sentiment, promise, and hope; worry, fear, and doubt. No matter how hard he tried to deny his heart, he couldn't escape the lightness that filled his lungs every time he held her close, breathed in her scent, conjugated Latin verbs while she sat in his lap, chewing on the belt of his best dressing gown.

Now Eurus. The one most hungry emotional context the one most unable to comprehend it. He'd committed himself to helping her understand. And wasn't that ridiculous, him instructing someone on empathy, family? On what grounds did he have to conduct such lessons?

Mary's voice caressed his head. _Fairly solid grounds, Sherlock._

Unease overwhelmed the afterburn of his two-year adrenaline high. Once he returned from the dead to find John engaged, not waiting for him at Baker Street, the shadow of depression once again began accompanying him. He'd assumed the two of them would live out their lives together in companionable bachelorhood. His head pounded the afternoon he congratulated Molly on her pending nuptials. The relentless hammering subsided only when the Magnussen case presented a thinly veiled excuse to shoot up. 

His insides nearly exploded the night Rosie was born; bright sparks sloughing away the calcification. Amazing that so much contentedness had found a way into that deformed muscle at the center of his chest.

How could such a tiny human inflict so much agony, making it difficult to breathe, to think?

When Mary died, there was no physical pain. Only a black, suffocating emptiness, a gaping hole that sucked everyone out of his life. John, Rosie. Even Molly. Sherlock remembered the reproach in her watery brown eyes the afternoon she explained to him that John's heart was broken, that he was in pieces.  

> "Molly, don't be dramatic. It's shock and anxiety not—"
> 
> "Sherlock!" 
> 
> "What?"
> 
> "You cannot be this callous. This..." She clipped her words and looked away.
> 
> He felt the chill of her disappointment. In him. Again. "What, Molly."
> 
> When she turned back, her face had softened but her body... she'd shuffled backward a bit. One of her perpetual fidgets, perhaps, but he got the impression that she'd filled the moat between them, raised her drawbridge. "You cannot be this... _you,_ " she whispered.
> 
> Sherlock pursed his lips together to keep from defending his position, straightened to his full height - and spoke anyway. "All lives end, Molly."
> 
> She nodded once in agreement. Good girl, always the pathologist, he remembered thinking. She may be forever a romantic but Molly Hooper was a doctor first, a scientist who stood by truth, like him.
> 
> "You never cease to amaze me, Sherlock Holmes." She smiled without humor. "I've always admired your ability to...to...protect yourself from all this ordinary grief." She swallowed hard before continuing, "But, now? Now I kinda think the best thing - for all of us - is for your heart to be smashed to bits." Molly went back inside the Watson's flat. Before closing the door, she met his eyes, her voice wavering as she spoke. "Or nearly smashed to bits. I...I'd hate to see you in this kind of distress...over someone...else...I mean someone...never mind..." 
> 
> She shut him out then, the door closing with a soft _snick_.

Silence thundered over all of them after that, lines of communication that had survived previous challenges finally knocked down by the storm.

The dangers of caring blowing to bits its advantages. And here he was, eager to hand Molly the stick of dynamite because friendship was no longer a strong enough fix for him.

_She’s alive._

Yes, John.

He'd never bothered acknowledging a higher power before. But when the clock stopped at two seconds, Molly’s impending death ripped through the wall he’d built around himself - around _her_ \- as though it was made of lint rather than the stone he’d quarried for nearly a decade.

New scaffolding now, new building materials: fear, happiness, doubt, peace.

 _Love._ John and Mary replied in sync. No sarcasm. No melodrama. Simple truth.

 _The truth is rarely pure and never simple, Sherlock._ Mycroft now. He could do without big brother invading his quiet. It was difficult enough to navigate the last few hours with the Watsons buzzing around his head.

He hadn’t been this frightened since Baskerville.

“Molly!” He shouted, louder than necessary.

 _And do you have the first idea how lucky you are?_ John queried. 

“I know!" Molly yelled back from the kitchen. Was she answering his question? Or John's?

Either way, he hoped her answer would be the same.

Sherlock watched the water sluice over his hand, rinsing away all the invisible particles, Molly's skin, her scent. How quickly she could slip through his fingers. “Once your life is over, it’s not you who’ll miss it,” he mumbled. His words to Faith/Eurus. _Stress can ruin every day of your life. Death can only ruin one._ His words to Molly. More arrogance. Had _she_ died, he would’ve missed her. Every day. He didn't realize it until her death became imminent and he'd yet to redeem himself, apologize for so many years. _So many words left unsaid, etc. etc. etc. etc._

Good Christ! No wonder he stayed well back from the edge of love. Falling was grisly, exhilarating business. Once you admitted the truth to yourself, plummeting head first into that abyss seemed the only obvious course of action.

What was he supposed to do here? While he waited for her? Soap bubbles? Isn't that what 'real' people dId in their 'real' lives? Draw baths with bubbles even though the suds just went flat? Seemed an ordinary gesture, an unnecessary indulgence.

_Mary always liked candles and a glass of wine._

My point exactly, John. It's nine o'clock in the morning. Do be sensible.

_File the information in your mind palace, Sherlock, next to your list of 127 things to do with Molly—_

How did Mary know about his list?!

Silence.

Now you're tight-lipped, Mary?

 _Yup._ She popped the last letter off just to annoy him and Mycroft chuckled.

He called over his shoulder once more. "Molly!" What was she doing?

She mumbled something that got lost in the scrape of a fork across a plate. Mrs. Hudson's room service. His landlady thought of everything. She always did. He wiped his fingers on his pajama bottoms and turned off the taps, fidgeted until he couldn't take the silence anymore. Now what? Mary!

_Yes, Sherlock. Why am I here?_

"You're not _here,_ Mary." His mouth and his mind had wandered into uncharted territory.

_OK, have it your way. Fine. I'm not 'here'. You're not certifiable. You're not off your tits. You're just out of your depths._

"Yes. I need..." His voice faltered. He didn't know what he needed and that worried him. More to the point, he knew what he _did_ need. 

_Sherlock. You tuned me out shortly after the Culverton Smith case. Why now? Why did you summons me last night?_

He kept his mouth shut.

_Right after Irene Adler's text message wedged itself between you and Molly, I popped back into your head. Why?_

If he'd had pockets in his pajama bottoms, he would've thrust his hands into them. Instead, he paced a sliver of the floor, scrubbing his scalp as though some friction could work loose the words stuck in his frontal lobe.

_It's OK to say you need help with this. Sherlock. Relationships. Romantic ones. You haven't fully grasped platonic ones quite yet. It's not a stretch to think a significant romantic one scares you._

He glanced over at the mirror. Same hair. Same face. Same chest. But everything had changed. Molly had touched his hair. She'd skimmed his jawline with her breath, her fingertips. He'd felt her lips on his clavicle, his ribcage. His reflection mocked him. He didn't know what to do with Molly, with _them_ , outside of Baker Street. He'd barely registered an appropriate response _inside._ Molly made everything better, easier.

Why was this so difficult?

Molly had invited him to stay in her orbit after the cab ride to her flat, as easy as that, while he formulated advanced maneuvers for doing the same. She kissed him on the bridge while he moved in slow motion, searching for an opening to initiate the kiss. She took off her trousers first while he fidgeted with his coat and gathered sexual study materials from his mind palace. She was fearless.  _He_ was reckless.

"I need help with this, Mary."

_Agreed._

"I don't want to get it wrong," he breathed, sinking his chin into his chest.

_You need to take your knocks like the rest of us, Sherlock. Make...mistakes..._

A single tear bloomed. He watched as it hit the floor and explode, a silent firework on the octagon tile. Sherlock blinked hard and looked back up. "I'm sorry, Mary."

_I know._

They stood in silence, him staring into the mirror, Mary breathing inside his head.

_For the record, Sherlock. My life ceased being my own the moment Rosie was born. I made a split-second decision to free her from the burden of my past. John made me into a martyr, I'm not a lily-white saint. He's no irredeemable sinner. The truth is somewhere in the messy middle._

He nodded.

_I can't help you._

"Who can?"

 _Are you seriously asking me this, Sherlock? She's not the second coming of the Virgin, you know. Molly will make her mistakes, too. You'll make them together. Do you have any idea how lucky you are?_ Mary didn't wait for a reply. Her voice faded into the Saturday morning rumble outside the flat, leaving him alone with his answer.

"Right, then." He grabbed a purple bottle from Rosie's shelf and turned the taps on again, full force and warm. Frothy, lavender-scented clouds formed on the water's surface as soon as he poured the liquid into the tub.

A smile creased his face as he watched the bubbles multiply. "Molly! Hurry up! Your bath's going cold."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck. Lied again.  
> I couldn't kill all my darlings so I split them up into two chapters.  
> Head over to the long awaited bathing chapter - Part Deux.
> 
> Srsly, tho - this beast is ending at 20.  
> Thank you, as always, for your kind eyes, your kudos & your comments. Onward!


	19. Coming Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited bathing chapter - Part Deux.
> 
> (There was very little time between the posting of Part One and Deux os if you missed it, please read chpt 18 so you know how they got to 'here').

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/35710754651/in/dateposted-public/)

Molly shoveled another forkful of cold eggs into her mouth before answering. “Mmm hmm…I heard you.”

She hadn’t eaten anything, except for a few bites of Mrs. Hudson’s party nibbles, since last night. The night when everything changed. And some things stayed the same. Like eating cold eggs over the sink at Baker Street. How many times had she done this, refueling at the end of a self-imposed quarantine? One, maybe two bites, then grabbing a biscuit, gulping down tepid tea and flying off to Bart’s fresh from detoxing the world’s only consulting detective?

Mrs. Hudson always arrived for her morning shifts with a full breakfast in hand knowing neither Sherlock nor Molly would eat her lovingly prepared plates. Food was the woman's nod to civility, bless her. Normalcy.

There was nothing normal about those mornings. And yet, Molly acknowledged that was _their_ normal, hers and Sherlock’s.

Today? Today was abnormal. Biscuits in bed? Baths being drawn? Her heart almost burst from the ease of it all. What was this?

Butterfly wings battered her insides answering the question. Her fingers twitched to feel his hair again. Her lips tingled with the memory of his skin - all of it - pressed against her mouth. Her nostrils flooded with the smell of him; salt and musk, posh soap and ozone. So different from the acrid, burning anxiety that scorched their cloistered detox sessions. Both scents so intimate, the two sides of him laid bare.

The muscles deep in her core quivered, flooding Molly with a sensory memory, Sherlock slick and heavy and moving inside her, furthering her hypothesis: they were out of their depths.

Were they _suddenly_ more than friends? Or _finally_ more than friends? Either way, 'suddenly' and 'finally' brought with them the same level of emotional apprehension. The kind that hit you when you emerged from under the fog of nine years of desire. And hours of phenomenally good sex. She set the fork down and looked around. Sunlight glittered through the front windows framing a shadow that stretched across the sitting room carpet.

A sundial tick-tocking away the minutes before they’d have to return to 'real' life.

What was real after everything had shifted?

Moments ago, Molly had thrown on the gray t-shirt, sans pants, and watched with naked appreciation as he flexed his long legs into the pajama bottoms. They’d wandered into the kitchen together, Sherlock crouched over her shoulders, one hand flat against her middle, the other fumbling with the curtain of hair hiding her neck. Molly had a devil of a time keeping his t-shirt from riding up her bare backside as she reached behind her to pull on his mess of curls.

Mrs. Hudson’s pot of tea had gone cold. She flipped the kettle on partly to fix a fresh cup, mainly to keep her hands occupied. The orgasms he’d served up in rapid succession only made Molly hungry for more. Nine years of celibacy will do that, she reasoned. She couldn’t deny the truth to herself any longer; she’d engaged in a sexually active form of abstinence since shortly after meeting him, eyes wide open to the fact that none of the suitors sharing her bed were Sherlock Holmes - until she snapped her lids shut and let her imagination run away with her body. Then all bets were off.

She’d done the man a grave disservice, superimposing him over a long line of fair to middling lovers. 

Her body flushed, cheeks going bright pink at the thought. She kept herself busy with the tea in hopes that it would cool her down before Sherlock noticed. Not a chance. He'd propped himself up against the kitchen table to watch her, hands unable to keep off her bum. He grabbed the hem of the shirt, pulling her back into him, and hooked his ankles over hers so she couldn’t fuss away. Molly managed to pour two cups as Sherlock's hands slid under her shirt. Their movements were so fluid, as though they’d made tea in this manner forever. What she’d always wanted.

And it scared her to death.

Molly relaxed back into him, hands clasped behind his neck, despite the thoughts wrecking havoc on her nervous system. “I though you said you’re going to run me a bath?”

“I did say that. Yes.” His hands floated down her sides, large palms resting on her naked hips.

“So…”

“So. Nothing,” he quipped. "I’m going to run you a bath. I’ve just never held you in the morning. I’ve _seen_ you in the morning - although never looking so...inviting." He walked his fingers across the delicate skin of her pelvic bone. "And I've suffered through some of your very loud silences in the morning—“

“— _You’ve_ suffered?”

He grunted at the sharp tug to his hair and slipped his fingers down to her inner thighs in retaliation. “ _Aaand,_ deservedly so," he allowed, his breath becoming a bit ragged as his thumbs skimmed her seam. "Although I do contend that the last time you administered a saline drip, the tourniquet was unreasonably tight—“

“—Plane ride to a certain death or no, your veins were _unreasonably_ compromised.”

His hands stilled and Molly instantly regretted the images her words conjured; Mycroft handing her the scrap of paper on which his younger brother had scrawled his laundry list: morphine, Lorazepam, cocaine… it went on, an alarming mix, even for Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs worrying her hands, her face lined with concern. Sherlock sprawled in his chair, head back, eyes closed, Molly had braced herself for the bellowing, childish tyrant she’d encountered so many times before. Instead, it was a reticent, battered man, sleeves of his blue dressing gown bunched to the elbow, pale forearms turned upward, waiting for her; silent acquiescence to her examination, a conceit that he needed help. It was a sight she’d not wanted to revisit, ever, especially not now, not while he wrapped himself around her in their  _morning after_ cocoon.

Such heartbreaking choreography between them, combinations that left her as bruised on the inside as he was on the outside. 

_Addict._

Sherlock grunted as though he'd heard her thoughts, removing his hands from between her legs and circling her waist in a chaste hug. Was he proving her point, giving her the fix she'd always wanted, or acknowledging his own dependency? He let the rumble of the boiling kettle peak then die down before continuing. “Be that as it may, Miss Hooper, I contend your clanging cold shoulder was wielded with considerably more zeal that time. You then proceeded to palpate the vein with sharper slaps than necessary—“

“—Those _taps_ were warranted. Again, your arm was atrocious.” She said so with as much levity as she could muster but the words shook in her throat. They both knew there were no laughs to be found in that memory. 

A beat passed. “I’ve never just… _held_ you,” he shrugged, his words a low, soft breath across her temple.

The syllables landed on her heart. Like a feather on an anvil.

 

Molly pushed the plate away, no longer hungry for hard eggs, soggy toast, or lukewarm sausage.

She was starved for smooth sailing, not the continual grappling with sails in turbulent winds. She’d spent years running round Sherlock’s capacity to love anyone as though she were pulling petals from a daisy. One minute she was sure she'd caught some telltale sign - a brush to the back of her neck in the lab or a lingering look in the morgue. The next minute, he'd show himself to be an absolute shit.

Now the majority of his demons were exposed. And they were named Holmes. What if they made a mistake, hurled hurtful words at each other in anger or judged too quickly motives for a kindness, taken as a slight? The slings and arrows of childhood in the hands of adults...

There was a year or so, back when Molly was twelve or thirteen when her dad moved out of the house. Her mother told the girls daddy was working long hours, setting up the second shop in Peterborough and it was just better for him to sleep there rather than coming home all the time. Something about mum's pinched face and terse explanations didn't sit well with Molly; she'd heard her parents arguing, knew they'd been at it for several months by the ease with which they'd nipped back and forth at each other. Voices rising above the _shsh-ing_ , doors slamming and cars starting. That's when Molly began tempting fate on the conservatory roof.

But always with an escape route at her back. 

Turmoil she could control: unrequited love, friendship. Safety nets. Not without their holes, perhaps, but comforting nonetheless.

Her father eventually moved back home and, while it wasn't as though nothing had happened, her parents seemed to find a new equilibrium that they rode out until her dad died. _Wars fought on paper are always black and white, Molly. No heart_ , her mum said. _Battles in real life, though? Those take place on some fucking soggy fields._

She had no idea what her father had done for Mum to let loose with a swear word. Had he done anything at all or had they simply grown apart from each other, as she feared? She never asked. It was their relationship. No matter how close she was to their marriage, she wasn't _inside_ it. Everything from the outside looking _in_ wasn't the same as looking inside out.

What if Sherlock started using again? Molly knew the answer before the question formed in her mind.

She’d be there for him, for all of them, even after informing him that she would not.

_Of course she would._

She loved him. He said he loved her. Neither of them could take it back. 

“Molly!” He shouted again. “What are you doing?”

“Mmm. I know. Coming.”

John would be by soon with Rosie. They'd all have to get back to real life. Right now, however, she was going to dive, head first, into the monsoon and take her bath. After one more bite of toast with jam, maybe some egg. Real life was still hours away.

Thick, humid air enveloped her as soon as she opened the door. The world's only consulting detective had drawn her a bath and submerged himself in it, up to his chin, in a cloud of frothy, lavender scented bubbles. His hair was slicked back, his cheeks ruddy from the steam. She'd never been in his flat when he bathed, always ducked downstairs to Mrs. Hudson's or made a hasty departure to grab a bag of crisps at the cafe. Sitting across from his bed while he sweat through his pajamas and the bed linens was less intimate than listening to water swish over his naked body.

“What…? I…I thought you said you were drawing _me_ a bath?”

Sherlock looked down at the suds then back at her. “I did."  
  
She shut the door behind her, further reducing their cocoon to just a few square feet - and one giant clawfoot tub. “I don’t remember you saying anything about joining me.”

“I didn’t.” His voice was nonchalant like this was the most natural thing in the world for the two of them. “Snap decision. I’m reminded of London’s water conservation policies."

Molly eyed him suspiciously. “Those requirements only apply to outdoor use - during the summer. Not bathing,” she crowed, crossing her arms in a show of superiority. Her advantage was short-lived. Her t-shirt hitched up, exposing her bits to the very intense cerulean gaze of the detective in the tub.

Sherlock made no attempt to conceal his enjoyment of the view. His eyes lingered over her lower half before meeting her face. “Municipal by-laws are always subject to individual interpretation.”

“Ignorance of the law—“

“—could be quite fun, Miss Hooper.” He arched a brow at her, raising one bubble-covered leg up and resting it on the rim of the tub.

Her belly flipped. Damn him. Why did he have to be such a beautiful boy?

She pulled the t-shirt up over her head and tossed it at him. "Is there room in that dilapidated vessel for me?" she grinned.

"Been keeping your spot warm." 

Molly straddled the side of the tub, lowering one leg in and letting it acclimate to the temperature. She sucked in a breath. "This is fucking hot!"

A corner of his mouth kicked up. "Yes," he blinked, "It is."

"Ha ha." She flung her other leg into the tub, kicking bubbles in his direction, and slid all the way down facing him, her head resting near the taps. "This thing's as big as the QE2. Look." She stretched a leg out and pointed her foot at him, her big toe barely making contact with his chin. "I can't reach you all the way back there in steerage."

He smiled, wide and wicked as Molly flicked more bubbles at his head, then he captured her foot in his strong hands, moving so quickly that she had to grab the edge of the tub to keep from being pulled under. "You've got it wrong, Miss Hooper. No posh transatlantic voyage for you, I'm afraid." His thumbs worked the arch of her foot in small circles, her body going pliant under his touch. "Looks like you've got yourself caught in the nets of the Queen Anne's Revenge." 

"Then I surrender." She closed her eyes, enjoying the pleasure of floating through the bubbles as he reeled her in closer to him. The suds smelled flowery and clean. Molly recognized the sweet lavender scent as a bottle of organic wash from Boots. She'd supplied Baker Street with a bag full of goodies shortly after Rosie's birth: baby wash, lotion, a monogrammed flannel. Multipurpose ointment. That product seemed to terrify him.  

> "Just in case you need to give Rosie a bath, Sherlock."
> 
> He went pale at the suggestion. "Why...why would I need to do that?"  
> 
> "You can't expect Mrs. Hudson to do everything while John and Mary are away."
> 
> "Why...why not...?" he stammered, "And it seems perfectly reasonable to expect Rosie to keep herself clean while her parents are out...selfishly galavanting instead of tending to their child."
> 
> She was enjoying his obvious discomfort. "Oh, come on. You're a genius. You've _bathed_ before so you understand the mechanics," she giggled, "just apply that knowledge to Rosie. Easy."
> 
> "Hmpf. I still don't foresee a scenario in which all these products will be necessary," he grumbled, accepting the bag with a huff of irritation. 
> 
> "No, you wouldn't. So let me offer you a piece of advice. Spread the ointment on thick before putting her in a clean nappy." She paused for dramatic effect, "And make sure you get it all of the creases. Babies are known to go rashy in the cracks."
> 
> Sherlock's eyelids fluttered at the suggestion. Molly collapsed into John's chair, peels of laughter spilling out of her until she couldn't breathe.

She wondered now if her gifts had survived the explosion or if he'd used a new bottle. She grinned at the thought of him trotting over to Boots to replenish his supply, asking a clerk where he could find the full line of Childs Farm products.

His hands drifted up her thigh, fingers tickling as they went. "What are you grinning at?"

"You," she replied, eyes still closed. His clever fingers teased her mound. God love Mr. and Mrs. Holmes for introducing Sherlock to the violin.  

"Don't you know it's unwise to laugh at a pirate aboard his own ship?"

"Hmm. I've never bathed with a pirate before."

He said nothing for a few minutes, let his hands roam over her hairline and belly. When he finally spoke, his voice was restrained, as though his brain had fought with his mouth before finally letting the words loose. "What about a sociopath, then?"

Molly heard him hedge, the question almost as painful for him to ask as he perceived the answer would be to hear. As far as 'so what were your last boyfriends like?' conversations went, this one had been preceded by a conversation about his dominatrix. 

"I've never bathed with a sociopath, either, Sherlock."

His hands clasped around her waist. "Oh. That's...good. Very...good."

Whether a deficiency in his skill set or willful blindness, he'd never fully deduced her relationship with Jim. Nor did he ask her about it, except once, in an angry, fevered stream of consciousness. And while he conducted all his cross-examinations without tact or concern for his witness, _this_ subject remained one that he danced around with atypical caution. She sat upright, meeting his clear blue gaze. "Nothing happened between Jim and me. I got the sense that he'd set his sights on other targets. A girl doesn't like being hunted, per se, nor does she like being an inadvertent wing-man. Woman. Whatever."

Sherlock nodded once.

"He asked a load of questions about you, to which I foolishly supplied the answers—"

"You're far from foolish," he mumbled.

"Yes...well...still. I knew an awful lot about you. Silly things that didn't even matter. I just...told him. After I did, I felt like a traitor."

"No, no..." he objected, "you didn't do anything—"

"Wrong? No. I didn't," she agreed. "I felt like a traitor to my heart, Sherlock, giving away all those little things I'd catalogued about you. Things I'd kept secret for myself. The way you like your coffee even though you never drink more than a few sips of it. Which brand of microscope slide you prefer..." Her voice trailed off.

"Thermo Scientific," he smiled.

She returned it, warm and wide, "Yep. They're an inferior brand, by the way, more suited to a hobbyist," she teased.

"Oh really," he squawked, pinching her arse.

"Oww!" Molly kicked at him. "Anyway, I ended it. Apart from everything else, I wasn't important in his eyes and that didn't suit me. And he'd found people who were close to you, exploited their importance in your life."

Sherlock exhaled the names, all of whom were dear people Molly loved without question. "John. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade." Still, Molly couldn't help feeling a tad jealous after hearing that they'd been targeted by Moriarty because of the high esteem Sherlock held them in. She felt horrid seconds after realizing she'd actually wished herself among the people with a gun pointed to her head, quietly making it up to each of them by giving thanks every day for their safety and long life.

Molly looked away, "Yeah...I mean, I get it. You and I weren't anything—"

"You were the one that mattered most, Molly." His voice rumbled around the small room, caressing her as surely as his fingers were now doing. "He didn't come after you because he couldn't read your significance to me. I made sure of that."

She let the words settle before looking back at him. "I can't decide if I should thank you or rail against you for that."

"Can I lobby for one over the other?" His tone was light but the storm had turned his clear blue eyes gray. 

Molly considered his face, the hard edges softened by the last year, beginning with Rosie's birth and culminating in the discovery of his forgotten sister. Where did she fit in this story? Epic saga? It certainly wasn't the fairytale she'd secretly dreamed about, the one she'd never tell her girlfriends. The one she barely let bubble to the surface on rainy Saturday nights alone. And yet, she wouldn't rewrite any of it.

Except for Mary's death. 

Eurus's institutionalization.

Sherlock's missing childhood.

OK, so there were whole chapters she'd pitch. But the outline was still solid. Her mother's words echoed in her head. _Just because your father died doesn't mean we didn't get to our happy ending, Molly. We found each other, fell in love, fell out of love, found each other again. Might not be your idea of a good book, but to me, it was something worth reading._

"We changed with that phone call, Molly," He ran his fingers along her jawline and she couldn't keep the corners of her mouth from creasing upward. "I'm inclined to forward motion." 

Her words caught in her throat, coming out on a bit of a warble. "For the record, I still haven't bathed with a sociopath." She moved toward him, pressed her lips to his. "I contend that the  _charming_ , calculating man who'd been forced into that phone call came out of it closer to the beautiful six-year-old boy - in spirit anyway - he once was." 

Sherlock spoke into her mouth. his breath warm and sweet, tasting of tea and good biscuits. "I'd like to think I'm still a _bit_ charming."

She pulled back. "Oh, a bit...," Then kissed him, lush and full, her hands trailing up his shoulders, his neck and into his wet hair before breaking off and spinning round to lean back against him. "And you're fast approaching middle age. This flat can only hold one infant so that honor goes to Rosie, lest you get any ideas about regressing."

He laughed. "Understood. Do bubbles count as a regression?" 

"No."

 

They soaked until the bubbles all but disappeared. Sherlock massaged Molly's shoulders and arms as they talked about his visits to Sherrinford and her dad, neither of them interested in getting out of the tub - and back to real life - anytime soon. How easily their conversation wound down to companionable silence, legs entwined watching the sunlight dance round the riotously kitted bathroom; pink, green, and black, courtesy of Mrs. Hudson's salvage-yard decorating, Rosie's lemon yellow flannels, and the enormous navy blue bath towels Sherlock preferred. 

The palette fit the flat, the man.

"Here," Sherlock shifted under her, "I'll wash your hair if you get the shampoo."

His offer startled Molly out of her comfortable stupor, too good to resist. "Mmm. You're on...where is it then?"

"The shampoo?" He exhaled a long, slow breath and relaxed his head against the wall, his long arms draped over the rolled edge of the tub. "Up."

"Up?" she repeated.

He flashed a tight-lipped smile at her. "Up." The last letter exploded from his lips and ricochetted off the tile walls.

Molly hoisted herself to her feet, exposing her body to the cool air - and his icy blue gaze. Gooseflesh pebbled her skin. She shot him a weak look of aggravation to which he responded with innocence. She'd no doubt he planned this scenario while she was busy gulping down a few bites of breakfast. About two-thirds up the wall was a small niche. She'd have to lean over him to reach it, the position putting her bits in Sherlock's face. Always the master manipulator, she smirked, folding her arms across her puckered nipples and raising a brow at him.

"Be sensible, Molly. I'm not a teenager. I'm _fast approaching_ middle-age. I've neither the brain capacity nor the stamina to...attend to you on little sleep and less tea."

"Hmm mmm." She stood still a few seconds longer but the chill got the better of her, hampering her intimidation tactics. The quicker she got back under the water, wrapped herself in his limbs, the better. Molly braced her arms against the wall and went up on tippy toes. "Oh!" she squealed.

Sherlock's hands gripped either side of her hips, immobilizing her with little effort. His wicked fingers thrummed the curve of her backside.  "What? I'm just steadying you. Don't want a solicitor knocking at my door with some injury suit."

"You'll get a knock, alright. And it won't be the solicitor."

"I look forward to it, Miss Hooper." 

His breath ghosted across her seam, turning her already wobbily bones to jelly. Molly steadied herself and took inventory of the shelf: sponge, Rosie's rubber duckie, a little round tin, a rectangular bar that Molly immediately recognized as _him_ \- scotch, woodsmoke, sandalwood - and a plastic cup from the BrewDog in Camden. That had to be something John supplied to use in Rosie's bath, surely. She couldn't see Sherlock tipping back a pint from a plastic cup at a pub chain in Camden.

He was more a member of the 'lounging with a whiskey at Merchant House' set. 

And a 'partaking in a rough tipple with members of his homeless network under the Vauxhall Bridge' type. In clear view of his brother's cameras. 

Complicated. 

And sharing his bath with her.

Beautiful.

She looked down at him. "I see soap and a duckie but no bottle."

"The round tin," he replied, pressing a smile into her thigh.

She opened the tin, the scents of moss, sea salt, and algae, shimmering around her, brisk and clean. Leave it to William Sherlock Scott Holmes to wash his hair with some posh bar shampoo instead of a 2-for-1 bottle from Tesco.

Molly handed him the creamy soap and sunk back under the water. Sherlock lathered shampoo between his palms, the scent growing stronger with the friction. She'd died and gone to heaven. Who knew nirvana was located on Baker Street?

"Hmm...," he sighed, "I need the plastic cup, too. Would you be so kind...?"

So much for heaven. "Seriously?" she huffed, pulling herself out of the water again. 

"What?" he pouted, "Would you rather I duck your head under the water? My people are landed gentry, Miss Hooper, not savages."

"No monkey business from you then, Sherlock Holmes, _Esssquire_ ," she scolded.

Sherlock blinked wide eyes up at her.

"Anything else while I'm here?"

"Nope." 

He cradled her head against his chest and poured several cups of water over her hair, His gentleness was wildly sensuous, one strong hand cupped under her jaw, the other carefully directing the stream of water away from her eyes. He was silent, intent, as he worked, nimble fingers loosening her strands. He burrowed under her hair in search of the nape of her neck. Once found, he rubbed slow circles at the base of her skull. Molly's thoughts drifted to what it would be like if he set those hands to washing the coarser strands of her hair... 

A blush flared across her cheeks, accompanied by a trickle of slick heat between her legs. She didn't hear Sherlock laugh but she felt the rumble of it deep inside his chest. 

More warm water over her head, more concern for her comfort. She was already tipsy on him. If he was determined to get her drunk, this bath was doing the trick.

Over the last few hours, they'd engaged in what could only be categorized as giddy, sloppy, sex. The two of them were like eager teenagers on a service trip; all anticipation and need crashing into each other and fumbling about before a chaperone busted in for final bed check. Not that she'd ever engaged in such activity.

Unlike those early year tumbles, however, their age - not to mention just shy of a decade's worth of foreplay -  had thus far produced very good crashing.

 _Excellent_ crashing.

 _Very real_ crashingwrapped in dream-like moments of biscuits, breakfast, and now a bath.

She was officially drunk. Molly let herself float on the fumes of posh bar shampoo and the sound of him humming softly as he washed his own hair.

"Molly."

"Mmm...?"

"I need the tin."

Her fingers fluttered over his thighs and pinched his arse before getting up. She sloshed and splashed at him in protest. "You're pushing your luck, Mr. Holmes," she grumbled.

His hands moved, lighting quick, to spread wide over her bum. She caught herself, gripping the edge of the niche with her fingers, and yipped. Sherlock pressed his lips to the sensitive skin at her hairline, his rich baritone reverberating all the way up her spine and rolling across her scalp. "How far do you think I can push it?"

He slid several inches down the back of the tub to afford himself better access and ran his hand up her right calf. "Can you fling this leg over the edge?" She could and she did, raining water all over the floor. "Good girl," he grinned, teasing her seam with the tip of his tongue. "These curls need some attention, too." 

Molly lost herself to the swirl of the flat disc against her mound. The rhythmic circles almost causing her to lose her balance. Sherlock steadied her, his hand cupping the back of her left thigh. "I won't let anything happen to you, Molly," he whispered. She mewled her faith in him.

"Can I give this to you now without fear of watery reprisal?" 

She took the bar from him with a shaky hand. "You'll only get one if you stop," she moaned. His fingers massaged the fragrant suds into her skin, working her mound with the same deft strokes he'd lavished on her skull. When he deemed his job sufficiently done, he tipped water from the cup over her belly. The rivulets tickled her swollen lips and ran down the insides of her thighs. 

"I'll mind my manners, then," he quipped, letting the cup bounce over the edge of the tub and settling back once more.

"That's a terrible idea," she breathed.

"Yep." With both hands now free, he explored the lower half of her body, fingers flittering over her arse and down the back of her standing leg, under the waterline to her calf then up again, drenching her skin in fresh wet waves. He planted a line soft kisses to her raised leg, starting at the knee and advancing inward. His tongue darted out, swirling against the skin as his mouth moved closer to her pussy. The gooseflesh returned, this time, though, not from the cold air.

Sherlock tilted his head, burying his nose into her, and inhaled. Molly's belly went liquid, the same feeling that surprised her in Aarti's cab - a lifetime ago it seemed - when his head was in her lap. An intimacy that was both innocent and primal. She watched him, desire and bashfulness going to battle along her spine, a fight that wasn't altogether unpleasant. She'd never slept with anyone who'd worshiped her with such naked adoration for her body, her scent. He was marvelously shameless, so unselfconscious about sex in a way that only someone untroubled by self-imposed, unwritten rules about skin, fluids, positions could be.

He was the sexiest thing on God's green earth.

And he was between her legs, gently parting her lips and slipping one of those gorgeous, bony fingers inside her.

" _Fuuuck._ Sherlock." 

"I wasn't planning on it, no. Could be dangerous in the tub. Hope you don't mind." Two fingers now, stroking deep into her core, his lips sucking at her clit with practiced skill.

No, she didn't mind. Not this, not him. Not ever. The whole world was this cocoon, this massive tub. The twin sensations of pleasure from his hands, his mouth, and pain from standing on one leg coalesced, closing her mind to any outside intrusions. Opening her body to whatever he gave her.  

Water lapped against the sides of the tub with the rhythm of his movements; the slide and retreat of his skin and bones inside her, the slight hook to his fingertips skimming the secret center of her. She whimpered at his touch, wanting to sink down into the water press her body to his, reciprocate, content to do nothing but receive. His moans echoed in her ears, coaxing more slick heat from her body.

"Fucking Christ, Molly, you're dripping all over my hands. Fucking beautiful."

She closed her eyes at that, her head falling forward against the wall. She was nothing now except whatever he deemed her to be; wet, dry, cold, hot, it didn't matter so long as he never stopped. And he didn't. While his fingers teased her softness, his other hand caressed her arse, fingertips wedging between her cheeks up to the first knuckle. Molly's body answered before her brain had time to formulate a demure response, pushing into those phalanxes and pleading with him. "Please, Sherlock..." She may not have known what she was asking for but Sherlock did, blowing a stream of moist air at her swollen nub.

His voice was thick as he spoke into her. "Again, not here," he croaked, "but I foresee copious amounts of research in our future, Miss Hooper."

Eyes still closed, Molly could only nod her agreement and mumble something against the wall about clearing her calendar. The muscles of her standing leg were on fire, her entire body coiled just shy of snapping. She circled her hips, desperate for release that he seemed uninterested in providing at the moment. He was enjoying this, listening to her pant, feeling her puddle in his hands. "Fuck, Sherlock. I'm going to come all over your face!" The words - harsh, honest - would've shocked her scant hours ago, before she'd boldly fired that first shot on the Chelsea Bridge. Now they were the only syllables that made any sense.

And she owned every one of them.

Sherlock let out a strangled sound and rested his forehead against her leg. "God, I hope so, Molly...fucking Christ...!" he breathed. He removed his fingers, steadied her with his hands and frantically covered her seam with his mouth. His tongue thrust inside her, lips sucking, lashing at her flesh. Lush, intoxicating noises careened round the room. Their bodies syncopated, plunging and pulling apart from each other, heat and desire, with little concern for the water splashing over the edge of the tub, for _anything_ beyond where they were connected. Molly opened her eyes and grabbed his hair, transfixed by the glistening limp strands swimming over her hand. The concentrated smell of his posh bar of soap - the scent that had clouded her fantasies for nine years - closed in on her, dragged her so far beyond herself she never wanted to return.

"Please..."

"Yes..."

She wasn't sure which word belonged to her, only that they'd both spoken in unison, and that was enough. Molly's other hand slipped off the wall, joining the one behind Sherlock's head, pulling him to her core, forcing him to bear her weight. He pushed into her.

And the coil snapped.

 

Sherlock snatched the bottle from her hands. "No it's not," he pouted, incredulous at the suggestion.

"Yes it is," she laughed, "and these towels are ridiculous. Look, I can almost wrap it around myself twice."

"No. They're not." He tossed the bottle up and caught it with one hand, so cocksure of his skill and knowledge of toiletries even as he stood naked, his hair dripping wet. "And this is not a product manufactured for infants." He flipped the top off, making a show of squirting the viscous liquid and warming it between his large palms before spreading it over her bare shoulders. Then he bent over and rubbed the excess into his own thighs and calves. 

Molly ran his wide-toothed comb through her hair, watching his bare backside from the mirror. Sherlock's opaline skin, still rosy from their bath, stretched across the flat planes his shoulder blades, the ridges of his spine. He really was a gorgeous specimen. Especially from this angle.

He caught her eye when he stood up. "What?"

"Hmm...Oh, nothing. Just that, yes, Sherlock, that oil _is_  made for babies. I should know. I bought it for Rosie." 

He rolled his eyes at her then proceeded to make as much noise as possible and set about brushing his teeth. "Excuse me, Miss Hooper. I need to get to the basin."

"Be my guest," she smirked. Molly opened the door to the bathroom, letting some of the moisture out, allowing the real world in. The flat was quiet except for the distant hum of Mrs. Hudson's vacuum. She scooted behind him to finish combing her hair. Sherlock stepped aside, reached round with his free hand, hooking his index finger into the top of her towel. He pulled her toward him and smiled, eyes soft, lashes glistening. 

"I love you, _Mol-ly_ Hooper," he whispered, mouth covered in foam.

For the first time since she'd heard him say it over a crackling phone line, Molly felt nothing but happiness at the words. No confusion, no worry. No need to figure out what they were now, who they'd become later. Everything was perfect. She reached up on tippy toes and took his face in her hands and kissed him, minty bubbles and all. "I love you, Sherlock Holmes." 

They pressed their foreheads together and laughed. At what, she had no idea, but the sound drowned out nine years of missed opportunities and weeks of confusion.

And John Watson plopping Rosie down on the floor of the sitting room and walking toward the bathroom. 

"Sherlock? You in the bath?"

"Oh my god!" Molly squealed, throwing herself at the door with so much force it almost bounced back at her. "What is he doing here so early?" she whispered, clutching at her towel and his shoulder in a vice-like grip.

"You okay in there, mate?'

"Yeah...yeah, John, gimme a second," he shouted, prying her fingers off of him. He lowered his voice, "Oh, forgot to tell you. Remember that text I got earlier?"

Molly's eyes darted over her shoulder at the door, she was certain she could hear John breathing on the other side of it. "Yeah...So?!"

He took a step closer to her, leaning into her ear. "It was John letting me know he'd be round early to drop Rosie off." He delivered the information as though reminding her they were out of tea; no concern for the immediacy of the situation. "Something or another about an outbreak of strep throat at the surgery..."

"What...?! You...I could kill you..."

"John," Sherlock shouted again, "Why don't you take Rosie down to Mrs. Hudson's? She was up here already this morning, in search of someone to mother. I'll be out in a flash." He looked back to her. "Seems he couldn't get in touch with you because someone wasn't answering her mobile."

"Yeah, fine. You sure you're okay in there?"

"Couldn't be better. Thank you for asking." The grin he flashed at her was pure wickedness. Molly's body was already humming in anticipation. "Anyway, seems Dr. Watson couldn't get in touch with you so he texted me." His finger traced the edge of her towel, easing under where she'd tucked in the end. He tugged and it slipped from her body. "Awfully inconsiderate of you, Miss Hooper. What have you been up to these last few hours?"

Molly's hands went to his chest, rolling his nipples between her fingers. She went up on tippy toes and spoke into his center of his clavicle. "Research," she hummed.

Sherlock's moan was strangled in his throat. He leaned into her, his erection nudging her thigh, the pre-cum smearing across her skin. "I think I've bought us a few extra minutes. And we've proven to be fairly good against doors..." He planted both palms flat on the wood and bent down to kiss her. "Want to give it a go? For research?"

The corners of Molly's mouth kicked up in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20\. Srsly. 20.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for your kind eyes, kudos & comments.


	20. Driving Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for reading, commenting, kudo-ing. It means the world.
> 
> The good news: The last chapter is written & edited, ready to go.  
> The bad news: It contained so ~~many feels~~ much angst, I had to split it in two.  
>  This, then, is the _second to last_ chapter. These two... I cannot lie, I love giving them all the angst.  
>  The feels are mine.  
> Sigh.
> 
> (I really love this tight crop of the s4 promo image so I said 'screw it!' & used anyway even though it didn't fit into the overall design scheme)

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/36769638762/in/dateposted-public/)

"12:02. Lovely. Just great.”

Molly snapped her eyes shut, willing the minute hand on her backup alarm to move counter to its design. Rewind through time, to weeks earlier, when three little words shattered their brittle, invisible distance.

To months prior, when a bullet meant for a know-it-all show-off, unable to leave well enough alone, was absorbed by an ex-assassin-wife-friend-mother instead.

To a decade before, at an encounter in a mortuary, engineered by someone with shadowy authority in the British government, between a graduate chemist with a hobby and the junior pathologist assigned to mind him.

She traced the dainty gold arm with the tip of her finger. All that oscillation was more than the ancient clock could manage. 

"Ughhhhh." She flopped onto her back with melodramatic zeal, arms and legs stretched wide, taking up as much of the mattress as her small frame and immense pity party could command. "Double ugh!" He'd stamped his influence all over her.

Time wasn't cooperating.

Molly turned her attention to her old nemesis: the moon. The damn thing wavered in and out of the clouds, sticking its tongue out at her. The fickle light mirrored her mood, reflecting her thoughts back to earth every time she hit them out of her brain. 

She was in for an overnight of endless, cosmic volleying.

"Damn that posh arse," she grumbled.

Damn them both.

They'd shed their outerwear and close to ten years of intricate iron and steel undergarments, all willful ignorance and self-protective disinterest on his part; maudlin infatuation and deliberate cowardice on hers. With the weight of those polite inhibitions lifted, they'd exposed themselves. And punctured the layers keeping them at a safe radius from each other. 

Orbiting in the friend zone. Never in danger of landing on a relationship.

Molly's fingertips drifted down the center line of her body, grazing her sternum. She traced the shallow dip between her breasts, the swell of her belly.

_Lower._

She flattened her palm against the sensitive skin below her navel. 

He landed last night. They'd both planted their flags on the other.

_Lower._

Her hand was intent on waging an open rebellion against her mind. Power against power; one desperate to relive the pleasure of the last twenty-four hours, the other more than happy to rehash the pain of the nine years prior. Give or take. She squeezed her thighs together, barring access, but her breasts retaliated, nipples puckering in counter-attack.

"Traitors."

Her bits clearly sided with the enemy: six feet of lanky sinew and bone and dark, unruly hair. Nothing more than a mess of cowlicks and apathetic grooming, really. Lopsided smile, mouth overflowing with too many teeth. And words. God, so many words! Lips more feminine than her own. The plush bottom one, the bowed top. He'd lock those lips up tight, throw away the key, when it suited his eccentric Marylebone mood. When he was in that frame of mind, not a single vowel escaped his mouth for days on end. 

And when he got around to talking again, the backlog of thoughts careened down like an avalanche of unstable snow.

_You liked tumbling in those drifts._

"Shut up, brain."

And, anyway, his skull was too strong; broad, high arches of bone covered in spectral skin as if he'd swallowed Jupiter or some other frosty planet. Certainly not the sun, although fuck if he didn't delight in having everyone circle around him. 

_ You enjoyed every inch of that skin last night. _

"Epidermis," she shot back. "If we're going to have this conversation, please, let's use medical terms."

_ Why? _

"Because I'm less inclined to think on _us_ if I think on _him_ clinically," she huffed, feeling a little ridiculous talking aloud and much better at the same time. 

And what was up with his eyes? Too intense to be human. Slightly ovoid, dipping toward the bridge of his nose. Blue, then green, then gray. Never still, always shifting. 

Molly's body reverberated with a catalogue of its own; inaudible sighs and phantom touches.

Long, nimble fingers staking a claim to her bum, pinching and kneading, promising mark the pristine flesh if she begged him. She'd surprised them both with the sonic intensity of her begging.

His tongue, quick and relentless, at her core only moments after spilling inside her. Molly's body spasmed with an orgasm so deep, drawn from the shock and pleasure of Sherlock's uninhibited adoration, that she almost blacked out. 

Sherlock's nose - his fucking nose! He'd made her feel like his goddamn queen, resting his head in her lap as they rode in the back of Aarti's taxi, surrendering his overwhelming...regency to her. His quiet moan, buried in the V of her trousers, was worth a thousand orgasms; intimate beyond all the words in every known language.  

_What an infuriating arsehole._  Her brain shot back.  _What kind of friend does that?_

“Oh, make up your mind already!” she shouted. "You can't play both sides of the net!"  She kicked at the bedclothes and stumbled into the kitchen. "Tea." She didn't need it and she didn't want it but she filled the kettle anyway.

Sleep had overwhelmed her the moment she returned home and Molly let it, ignoring general consensus that the only way to acclimate to one's native time zone was to stay up.  Those who made up the general consensus never had to contend with an irritating baritone hijacking their every thought. Now, in the middle of the night, Molly was wide awake, predictably suspended between lingering jet lag and the jumble of her brain.

_Lower._

Ridiculous, the notion that women didn't think about sex nearly as often as men. She couldn't  _stop_  thinking about it. The act - the acts, plural - clarified as much as it corroded; evidence that they liked each other’s bodies, a lot, and confirmation that they impaired each other’s normal brain activity.

"The semantics of our antics are getting the better of us, Mr. Holmes." She slammed the cupboard door and got down to the business of brewing a ferocious cuppa.

"He's a fucking massive brain with a body made for massive fucking. Fuck!” She applauded her wit with a sour laugh. Good Christ, what had they done? And why did they have to be so good at it together? 

"Well, fuck me. Fuck him!" She struggled to keep her tirade at a polite decibel level. If they'd been awkward as fuck, terrible from the gate, she'd have a clearer head with which to suss out all the thoughts tripping up her mind. 

They _were_ awkward as fuck. In the beginning. For about a second and a half. He'd ripped her pants for goodness sakes. Almost stretched her bra into a 38 D trying to find the clasp. And it was sweet and clumsy and hot as hell.

”Fucking Fuck!" Molly groaned, annoyed with her inability to branch out beyond the current one word vocabulary. But vulgarity felt good, a delicious, mouthy, release. Immediate. Succinct. Mary delighted in it, was shocked and thrilled when she found out Molly was a fellow aficionado.

"What would Wordy-Mc-Wordster-Posh- Arse have to say about that?" 

She knew exactly what Wordy McWordster would say. He'd said it twenty-four hours ago in that jewel-toned voice of his. _By all means, say 'fuck' as much as you like, it's not as though I can stop you when you're on a roll._

"FUCK!" Molly's hands flew to her mouth. She was angry but she didn't want to worry David or Paul, her downstairs neighbours, with her blaring gutter mouth. The old plaster walls at 59 Larkhall Rise had a way of amplifying sound. She found _that_ out when they'd stuffed her Christmas stocking, as it were, with a gift card to that 'women only' boutique in Shoreditch several years ago. "Whoever he is, Molly, do us all a favor and treat yourself to a high-end,  quiet,  vibrator. We love you but your bedroom is right above ours. We're not suggesting you stifle your wank, just that you graduate from that ratty old Bullet you've probably had since uni." 

The boys were right, of course. She'd needed something a bit more industrial (and pretty) to take the edge off her dry spells. And, unlike her current living, breathing 6 foot tall dilemma, the battery-powered orgasms provided by her own hands didn't come with nine years worth of fucking baggage!

Molly ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it over her face, not ready to let go of her favorite word just yet. She was an educated woman, knew how to handle a scalpel. Her anger demanded precision and, by god, she'd slice and dice it. "Fucking. Bloody. Hell!” 

Crystal clear annunciation was the key to immense satisfaction, she decided.

_I. Love. You._

"Fuck." 

Sentiment and curse threaded together until they were one giant knot in her throat.

In her heart. 

Molly didn’t know which string to pull to make everything untangle.

Why was it so natural for them - in his sitting room? his bedroom? the bath?  Once out in the open air, they kept pulling at the wrong pieces of twine. They'd put to rest their game of tug of war in favor of hand knots.  She needed one of those books that showed you how to string Cat’s Cradle or Witch’s Broom between your fingers. She’d never been very good at them; the yarn always turned into a jumble and went in the rubbish.

_Oh ho! Now, on top of everything else, you're asking for a relationship schematic?_

”Shut up." Her sub conscious was intent on spoiling everything. Even her tea.

Yes. She wanted instructions, a book entitled “Friends To Lovers; No-Fail, Quick And Easy Recipes For Every Night Of The Week” or “365 Sure-To-Work DIYs For The Relationship Challenged”. Even better: "You're Most Definitely A Goddess; Your Genius Is An Idiot".

_ Your genius now, is it? _

Yes.

"NO!"

Yes.

She sighed at the ceiling, having run out of _fucks_.The melancholy sound suited her mood better than the vitriol anyway; anger was just the top note. Confusion was the much headier base note.

_ And...love? _

no.

"Yes."

Last night, they’d wrapped themselves in 221b's dense colors and wood smoke. And each other’s limbs. Left reality at the curb; the thorn in his family tree and the scars on his arms, her demanding, blossoming career and the imposter syndrome that accompanied it. The vow they'd both made to Mary and John as co-godparents. Their separate histories. All their combined drama.

The Globe had less drama.

They indulged in diversions; biscuits in bed and baths with bubbles. They kept real life at bay. Whatever came next could wait until after one more kiss to the tip of his nose. A last caress of his fingers through her hair. A final sigh as he thrust inside her.  They'd strung together hours of "just one more…”

Then Mrs. Hudson pushed them out of the calm center of their storm, claiming pain in her hip kept her from enjoying lunch with Molly and the baby. That troublemaker of a landlady sent Sherlock in her stead. 

Two inexperienced teenagers given keys to a bright, shiny relationship, not so much as a driving license or highway code manual between them. What was she thinking?!

_Sinister woman._

Out on Baker Street, Molly was caught in the crossfire between her head, which opted for restraint and her heart, which had been all in shortly after setting eyes on the man. She wasn’t nearly ready for daylight to shine down on whatever came after friendship.

Or maybe they were _overly_ ready. Either way, they couldn't seem to sync up their approach. One was on the map and the other had the wheel. Neither knew where the other was headed. 

The two of them may not have crashed the vehicle altogether, but she and Sherlock had managed to scuff it up quite a bit.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

“When was the last time you even used an Oyster card,” she laughed, “let alone the Tube?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her and handed Rosie over the turnstile. “The appointments that take me underground rarely require a ride on the train,” he replied and resumed the search inside his breast pocket, "or payment of a fare, for that matter, Miss Hooper.”

“Yes, well, both do come in handy for the rest of us.” Molly switched the baby to her other hip. “I’d rather not be party to a gate-jumper.” She leaned over the card reader and whispered at him, “My mum would be appalled if she found out I'd been hauled off not wearing clean pants.”

He stopped fumbling. “As I recall, Molly, you’re not wearing  _any_  pants.”

“I, um…yes, well—”

“Not to worry, I’m fairly certain BTP doesn't conduct strip-searches for simple fare evasion. Ah. Here we go.” Sherlock produced a matte black card with a triumphant flourish and waved it at the reader. “What an intriguing scenario  _that_  would be,” he added, striding through the gate and taking up Rosie once more.

He oozed  _perfect gentleman_ , damn his well-bred upbringing. His voice rippled over her scalp, stirring gooseflesh at the nape of her neck. The delicious shiver was at odds with the sudden wave of heat blooming under her blouse. She lost focus, aware only of the searing chill. And last night...this morning…

Travelers streamed by, but they were nothing but a blur onto which her brain projected the memories. Fingers, tongues, caresses over soft swells and knobby protrusions.

And  _I love yous._

“Molly?”

“Hmmm? Em…what?”

“North or south?”

“Oh. South.”

He and Rosie lead the way, engaged in a one-sided conversation on the myriad construction phases of Baker Street station. Molly hung back a step on the escalator. At four steps up, she had an excellent angle from which to enjoy their camaraderie, and the appreciative glances cast in Sherlock’s direction from riders headed up toward the street.

What a fine pair those two made. The Little Miss and the Massive Intellect.

Rosie was the sun itself in one of Mrs. Hudson’s charity shop finds - a lemon yellow corduroy dress. She dazzled against her uncle’s impeccable navy suit and a crisp lilac shirt, the fit of which hugged his lean chest like water skimming over a smooth rock.

Images flashed once more: palms gliding across nipples, lips pressed into skin. She sucked in a breath and Sherlock turned at the sound, whispering to Rosie. She beamed up at her auntie and waved a chubby little fist. Molly tried to stifle her embarrassment at having those thoughts with the baby in tow but her cheeks gave her away, turning bright pink when her eyes locked with his. Sherlock held her there, in his shifting blue depths, for what seemed like minutes, sliding his attention back to the bottom of the escalator just before he alighted.

She followed them along the platform, passing rowdy teens, a pair of elderly women with their arms linked, and a smattering of tourists. April was the last month they'd have to enjoy a relatively empty London. Once the calendar flipped to May, every station in Zone 1 would overflow with Lookie Loos and Fan Girls of various ilk. Potterheads. Beatle Maniacs. Jack the Ripper freaks. Janeites swarming through the city on their way to Bath or Chawton or Winchester.

Or do you say Austenites? She'd never figured that out.

Then there was the tiny group interested in the world's only consulting detective. Minuscule, really. Crime aficionados. Some weird Anglophiles who got off on his pedigree. Devotees of John's blog. She'd heard from Greg that Anderson did brisk business leading tours - of crime scenes only. After Rosie's birth, even he agreed that 221b should be off the itinerary.

Still, it wasn't a difficult address to find. Last time she checked, Molly counted six bus routes - three of which ran 24 hours - that traveled past Sherlock's flat at regular intervals, not to mention the fleets of tour buses always idling outside Baker Street station, waiting on their charges to finish up at Tussaud's. 

She envied him living right on top Baker Street Station. He could roll out of bed, land on options galore before he'd stumbled into the bath! And the man always took a taxi. Then again, he and Mrs. Hudson were swimming in crowds, noise, and Marylebone toffs, all of which kept Molly at a happy, safe distance in Clapham.

Only Regent’s in spring - and Marylebone eccentrics - held any appeal.

Correction: Only Regent's and  _the_ Marylebone eccentric held any appeal. If there was another Sherlock prowling the neighbourhood, God help the village.

The eccentric in question stopped short and turned on her, eyes zooming in like the lens of a camera on what she’d not said aloud. One side of his mouth slid up and Molly felt the sly pull deep inside her belly.

A teenager caught looking at the boy she fancied. 

"Why aren't we taking a cab again?" he asked.

Molly walked right into him, "Owww!" 

"It's dangerous to daydream on the platform, Molly. I’d have thought a public transport enthusiast, such as yourself, would know better,” he huffed. “Why aren't we taking a cab again?"

Molly wiggled the tip of her nose with her index finger. "First you crack my skull, now you break my nose?"

He fixed her with the same rattling eyes she’d rolled over _him_ in the backseat of Aarti’s cab. "Your nose isn't broken.” 

That cab ride from his damaged flat to Clapham - and the fitful evening that followed - seemed like a lifetime ago. Now they were together for an afternoon. No _"Molly, would you mind popping round Baker Street with a bag of fresh pinky fingers?"_ No _"Molly, would you like to solve crimes with me?"_ And no  _"Molly, this is Mycroft Holmes. Your medical services are required at Baker Street...again. I'd plan for a long night. Do hurry."_

This afternoon wasn't any of those. This was some sort of coda, she and Sherlock parading in front of an unsuspecting audience.

_ Afternoon as the precursor to... _

The dizziness engulfed her, the curved walls of the track humming and pulsing around her. Molly's brain tingled, a not unpleasant shiver to the underside of her skull. She  watched Sherlock's mouth move. He was speaking to her but his words got lost in the inches between them.

Strange, though, the sensation of his baritone breezing over her skin; cool shade in the midst of all the sunshine yellow and orange tiles surrounding them. Rosie patted at her uncle’s lips and lolled her head in the crook of his neck; Sherlock's warbled monologue had come to an end by her way of thinking and she demanded attention. 

Molly watched Sherlock as he nipped at Rosie's pudgy fingers, applying gentlepressure to each digit in turn. She encouraged him, giggling words that only he understood. He nodded in agreement with her noises, mimicking the bark and pant of a cartoon puppy, as though she’d asked him to do just that in the syllables of their secret Sanskrit.

And he never took his eyes off of Molly, watching her, burrowing deep into her, with those eyes that saw everything. Even the truths you kept well hidden from everyone, even yourself.  The din and dance of passengers faded around her; white noise and gray movement flooding the platform. Only Sherlock and Rosie remained in color, tones so fresh she could taste them. The pair morphed slightly, Rosie’s features fading into someone else's. An infant, to be sure, but no longer towheaded. Or female. Chestnut brown hair, straight and clean cut framing a sleepy face. The infant's eyes weren't green, like Rosie's. They were amber with gold flecks.

Like Molly's.

Sherlock remained solidly Sherlock, thank goodness... Except. No. That wasn’t right. He wasn't right. Well, it _was_ possible… He was approaching middle age, after all. Overhead fluorescents weren’t kind to anyone - including the world’s only consulting detective. But she would’ve noticed the gray at his temples last night and, again this morning. In the bath, surely?

The faint wisps lent more potency to his already aristocratic bearing, even as he singsonged his way through the farmer tune. What was the name of it again? Something about a dell…and animals…  Molly shook her head, hoping to clear what was obviously jet-lag induced apparitions. How else to explain why she couldn’t remember the name to a song she’d known all her life and why there was another child in Sherlock's arms? 

The child looked her square in the eye as if she’d called to it. Sherlock dipped his head to the boy’s ear and his little face scrunched up in a tight smile, tickled by whatever he’d heard. His stocky arms spread wide, hands motioning to her in that way babies always seem to be gripping at the air, indicating he wanted something from her.His lips moved, repeating a single word, his pink tongue rolling over syllables of her name. “Molly! Molly!”

She couldn’t hear his small voice. but she felt his little words, the vibration more alarming than sound.

_Mommy. Mommy._

Her heart missed one of its regularly scheduled beats.

The hallucination flared, like the last sputter of a birthday candle. She looked to Sherlock and it was definitely him, just not  _him_. But, oh my, was he ever stunning with the teeniest bit of gray at his temples. Unfairly so. Molly wondered what he’d look like with a pair of reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, the little boy fast asleep on his shoulder

And Molly's heart missed _several_ of its regularly scheduled beats.

_C'mon Hooper,_ she scolded herself, get a grip. _You're lightheaded, not untethered from reality_. A gust of air from a northbound train rustled through the tunnel vents, stirring her from what was clearly a physiological response to skipping so many regular meals. How does he function like this? His Mind Palace trips seemed less like genius brain maneuvers now and more a hunger-induced side-effect. 

Her brain snapped back into the thick of Platform 7. But the spectrum of detail from her vision was slow to dissipate, floating away in lazy arcs and diminishing color, a balloon drifting down the tunnel. Colorful. Comfortable. Real.

She swallowed the thoughts back down to where they belonged. 

"Molly?" Sherlock waited for her answer, eyebrows telegraphing impatience. 

"Oh, sorry. What were we talking about?"  


"Why your enthusiasm for rail travel should supersede Rosie's and my comfort," he deadpanned. His attempt to remain impassive was thwarted. however,  by two tiny hands rubbing at his cheeks, squishing his mouth and turning his frown upside down.

Molly stuck her tongue out at him. “See. Rosie agrees with me.” 

Sherlock laughed that rich rumble, rising from his chest, elastic muscles of his face stretching into his tight-lipped grin. ” _Southward, ho!_ then, Miss Hooper."

"I...yes." Molly snapped her mouth shut, unsure if she was responding to his question or corroborating his innuendo.

Sherlock's singing voice started up again, rising above the platform's babble. Rosie clapped her hands well off the beat, as babies do, once again engaged in their private call and response game. Molly turned away embarrassed by the intimacy of her hallucination; eager to weld shut the top on _that_ box. Served her right for not eating all of Mrs. Hudson's breakfast.

She shuffled along the platform, intent on being _totally present_ or whatever the mantra was of clear-headed people who didn't dig up the past.

_ Daydream about their future. _

“Beautiful afternoon for a family outing, isn’t it?”

The voice came from somewhere in front of her.

The little old lady was, in fact, down from her, shorter than Molly and, she guessed, just shy of 80. The woman smiled, wide and impish, from under a bloom of tidy white hair; a member of the ‘shampoo and set’ club from the generation that came of age after the war.

“Hmm? Oh. Yes. Ma’am. Lovely day. Yes. Lovely.” Molly clasped and unclasping her hands in front of her. “So, then, you’re headed south, too?”

“Oh yes.” Then, “My husband was the same way, love.”

Surely the woman was no longer speaking to her? “I’m sorry?”

The mushroom cloud bobbed her head toward Sherlock. “Him. Once the babies come, you’re no longer their baby,” she winked and gave Molly’s arm a knowing pat. “Especially when your first is a girl. Firstborn girls always have daddy wrapped around their little fingers.”

Molly’s jaw dropped to the floor, her words refusing to come out.

The woman continued to prattle, foggy eyes misting over as she watched Sherlock pantomime his way through the entire list of barnyard inhabitants, oblivious to anyone but the girl in his arms.

“My husband, he’s gone, now fifteen years. But when our daughters were still home with us, well, it was like they had their own secret club with a language and rules that belonged only to them.” She was quiet then, engaged with her younger self, her own family come to life, somewhere far off down the tunnel.

Molly glanced back at Sherlock, giving the old lady a moment’s privacy with her memories. He caught her eye and continued singing, bouncing Rosie on his hip and coaxing her to wave her auntie’s way. When she did, fist turned backward, fingers wagging at herself, Sherlock flashed a proud smile at Molly and mouthed in the direction of the old woman.  _She ok?_

“Fine.” Molly said aloud and turned back to her companion.

“Yes. They really are fine. Sweet. Just beautiful,” the lady gushed, having returned to Baker Street station. “You just get out of their way and let them be. You’ll get your turn with the boys,” she giggled, like a school girl some seventy years her junior. “And, by the way your husband looks at you, there might be three or four yet to come, eh?”

“Mmm hmm,” Molly nodded. “Wait. Whaaaat?!?”

“Your husband. Newlyweds, you too. Even with a baby. Nice to see that the stress hasn’t spoilt your romance. My husband was a romantic fool, too —“

If she hadn't been alarmed at the woman's inference, she would've snorted in triple-time at her mislabeling Sherlock a romantic fool. Fool? Yes. Romantic?

_ In his own way... _

Yes.

“—Oh! No. NO! We are not. That is, We don’t…I…he and I…,” For Christ sakes, she’d gone monosyllabic!

“Oh, I understand love, the woman patted her on the arm. “I may be old but I’m not one of those judgmental types. I say ‘the suffragettes fought for the vote and the Women's Libbers fought for the right to not wear brassieres in public. These new girls don't have to marry and so what if they don't!’ That’s what I’m always telling Glenda —“

“We aren’t married!” Molly croaked, the full range of her vocabulary just now catching up to the woman’s meandering.

“Quite right! That’s what I’m always telling Glenda. You girls don’t have to marry like we did. Keeps the romance alive,” she winked at Molly once more. “Keep that boy on his toes, I say. If he thinks he might lose you, he’ll move heaven and earth to stay in your line of sight.”

Molly’s words deserted her again. The pink flush of embarrassment, however, wasn’t so shy. “He…and I…He’s…”

“…absolutely smitten, my dear. Good on you! Now,” the old lady looked around the platform, oblivious to Molly’s discomfort. “is this train going north or south?”

“Well…em,…”  _C’mon Hooper, you can do this!_  “It’s…em… We’re not married!” The words burst from her lips like she’d just sprung a leak.

The woman blinked at her, not clear on what Molly’s confession had to do with the running of the Jubilee.

“Very nice, love. Does.this.train…go.to.Kingsbury?” she asked, each word its own deliberate sentence so Molly would better understand her simple inquiry.

“Oh. No…this one’s going south,” she replied, then rushed to tack on an addendum, “WeAreNotMarriedSherlockAndI —“

“Oh dear me. I better scoot, then, let you get back to your family. Lovely to speak with you.” And off she toddled in search of the northbound corridor.

Molly’s nerves headed south.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

 

"What the hell, Sherlock?"

He'd asked himself the same question, over and over, well before John and Rosie stopped by on their way home. Hours later, Sherlock still hadn't arrived at an answer. Walking didn't bring with it the clarity he'd hoped. After five or six hours, surely...

Turned out, he'd only been on the streets for three.

He'd no destination in mind, just a desire to feel the city around him.

That was a lie. 

He didn't like trading in dishonesty on a regular basis.

_ You lie all the time. It's like your mission. _

So the voices careening around his skull were back. "You made your point - the first time round, John," he sniped at the darkness, then turned his collar up to the wind and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, trying to avoid the bag he'd stashed in there shortly after Molly stormed off with the baby. He should just tear through it, now. Sit on the curb and dive in. H e wouldn't be the first person found out after midnight with powder all over his face. 

Hell, it wouldn't be the first time _he_ was found out on the street with powder all over his face. Mycroft interceded in those instances where the public was concerned. Molly took up the slack in the privacy of 221b.

Mycroft. In some circles, Sherlock may be known as a liar, but he'd never lied to _himself._  Except for those chapters of his adolescence he'd rewritten. But he'd had an editor's help on those, though, clipping the sentimental, the mellifluous, cutting entire pages from the final proof. Thank you for that, Brother Mine. 

When words and actions turned toward Molly, he'd lied all the time. His current lie was too thin, wouldn't hold up, even under the relative cloak of darkness of the Carriage Drive. 

She'd asked him what was the matter. Waited for his answer, fresh and light, cuddling Rosie against her. She looked like spring. 

Molly looked like the future. He didn't want to soil her. So he lied. 

Baker Street was a tomb after Rosie and her father left and an empty flat no longer held any appeal. He'd given tidying up cursory consideration,  found it a profoundly unappealing option. Besides, he wasn't a monster; depriving Mrs. Hudson of her favorite pastime was akin to dragging her down in the muck with him. Still, he should pick up his clothes from the floor at least and change his bed; there was a bit of chocolate on the top sheet…

She’d drenched his room in her presence. Her scent and her sounds were embedded in the creases of his bed linens. And his skin. He ran a finger over the navy binding at the edge of his duvet, felt her there. And that wouldn't do.

London, even in the April rain, was a better companion for his mood than mawkishness; quiet streets, empty parks, river access points. Didn't matter. 

Yes, it did. If he were looking for complete immersion in a diversion (Heh. At least his vocabulary was still in sparkling form.), he would've headed to dodgy lanes, kicked the stones about for trouble. Instead, he looped around Marylebone, Fitzrovia, Soho, in search of obscurity. He found himself along the Carriage Road, resolutely skirting Belgravia. This wasn't a Big Bus tour of his old haunts and questionable conduct. 

His body still reverberated with the release of telling Molly; overwhelming being forced to acknowledge it; frightening to watch her hear his words, excruciating to see her storm out of his flat. Breathtaking to be under her command on the Chelsea Bridge, to feel the press of her palms to his face, pulling him out from beneath his layers, wrapping her warmth around him, in him. 

Molly didn't offer forgiveness with that kiss; he hadn't asked for it. She concerned herself only with honesty.

And he was honest. With himself. With her. Oh, Christ! Was he ever. On the bridge. In the taxi. In his flat.

To admit that he needed to caress her, be held by her, again and again, was too honest, too much, too overwhelming. For her.

Alone was what he had. Alone protected him. 

Alone was rubbish now.

But the rain and his Belstaff would have to do, a combination that had seen him through much of his adult life. No reason why the three of them couldn't pass the night together like old times. The damp and the dark would untangle his thoughts from his feelings (or was it vice versa?). By morning, he'd make sense of it all. 

Wouldn't he?

He didn't have a reference. Yes, he'd suffered through multiple episodes of _EastEnders_ at Molly's hands while he detoxed. It was a punishment he wasn't altogether unfond of, seeing as how it gave him thirty whole minutes in which to watch her watching telly. " _I know. I know!"_ she'd laugh, not taking her eyes from the Fox-Hubbards, the Mitchells. Mick and Linda...  (He made a quick note to himself: get back at Molly for filling brain with useless, fictional family data), _But, you're not the best company when you're in a snit and this lot_   _helps my brain wind down."_

Sherlock wondered, fleetingly, how much of his script could've been rewritten had he taken up melodrama instead of opiates. 

No use skipping down that path. _A small dose of regret_ , as John's always saying, _it's only human, Sherlock_. But he wasn't much good at  _small doses_ of anything. If he was going to experience something, he wanted to drown in all of its colors and edges and temperatures. 

And promptly deaden the sensation.

When Molly rolled over last night, pressed her body against his, he felt…nothing.

Not _nothing_ nothing. He was aware of everything. _Her everything._ She’d poked at his calves with cold little feet and he’d rubbed them between own. Her thighs, damp from the humidity created by their bodies, fused to the backs of his legs. Springy, coarse hair brushed his arse. Her belly and chest rose and fell at his back, coordinating with the quiet whistle that escaped her nose.

She caressed his spine with her lips, the touch to his vertebra a primal message of gentleness and possession. When she flung her arm across his waist, slack from sleep, he thought his brain might dissolve from the relay of heat. Her muscles flexed around him, her palm splayed flat against his abdomen. Information transcribed in bone and skin. Promise and protection. 

Molly was deep inside her own dream then, and she pulled him along with her, began teaching him the steps to some secret music.

The violin. 

Had she hummed the notes or did he imagine them? Either way, the intimate sound stripped his wires, exposed the raw elements underneath. He'd stilled, not wanting to wake her. And forced every fiber of his being to sink into her skin, silently begged her to absorb him. 

_Absolve him._

His secrets had thick dossiers of secrets; acts of bravery to the untrained eye. Reckless, ego-laden deeds to those who’d learnt to see through him long ago.  He didn't seek Molly's pardon for those; he’d taken full responsibility for his actions, never committed to the side of the angels.

Never a hero.

_You’d have to be an idiot not to see it. You love it._

As ever, John, your assessment is unwelcome - especially the second time around.

_But valid._

Sherlock let John's disembodied presence have the last word. For the first time in his life, he thought better of a rebuttal, even though he had the words lined up (Heh. At least he still had the capacity for clever retort).

The bullshit, that’s what required Molly’s absolution, all those covert glances he slid her way, the cruel deductions at her expense.  He’d wasted opportunities. He’d wasted her time. And she'd called him out for wasting his own.  He heard her admonishments, her disappointment, deep in his bones. And he’d never asked for her forgiveness. 

He was desperate it now; not to make himself feel better but to give her the option of refusing him.

She deserved that, to be out from under the weight of his _genius_ \- the spinning fan-blade in his brain. He'd immersed himself in the game, sought out The Woman’s attentions, never affections, to pull the plug on his short-circuiting nerves. Bereft of those options, he appealed to the powder, the needle, the pill. He’d petitioned every substance he could get his hands on to shut it all down; the collection data and the subsequent collation. 

_Such bullshit._

It wasn’t his brain he’d closed himself off from. 

He’d always been such an emotional child. Mummy and father did what they could to assist him; they loved him. That was all. They loved him and protected him. As had Mycroft, in his way. Sherlock built the wall himself, brick by brick, sealed himself off from them.  The confinement was more of a threat to his wiring than the loving, the losing. But how would he have known that as a boy? He’d loved and lost Victor. He didn’t want to go through that agony again and again.

And yet he found himself in the position over and over; Moriarty's treats to John, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson. The elation and fear when Rosie came into the world, into his heart. Mary...

_ Molly. _

The layers were constantly being blown off of him. What would Molly think of his sublayers? What was underneath all of his debris?  

He stopped to get his bearings. Chelsea Bridge; suspended between their past and their future. He fumbled in his pockets. The bag. His mobile. 

Sherlock pulled out the phone and checked the time. 12:02. He swiped at the screen and began typing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more. one more. one more.  
> words are written. words are edited. there's an image.  
> it's all good. see you soon.  
> thank you for reading, commenting, kudo-ing.
> 
> i enjoy your sherlolly company :)


	21. Three Little Words. Again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! I held onto this beast trying to slash and burn sections. And, even though I got rid of whole passages, I had a devil of a time killing all my darlings. You know how it feels when the syllables start flowing and the words magically land where they're supposed to? Yeah, neither do I. But! I think this the best of the bunch.
> 
> Fitting, then, that It's the end of this story. Big squishies to everyone who read, commented & kudo'd. You're all brilliant!

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/154548944@N04/37154851242/in/dateposted-public/)

> Hey.

Texting a single father who'd worked a full day at his surgery, rather than the half he'd planned on, at just after midnight with a teething infant was, apparently, a dangerous trek over the thin ice of their friendship. Or so said father had informed Sherlock after he'd texted, repeatedly, until the dots pulsed in response at the bottom of his screen.

> ... 
> 
> _u alright? what's wrong what happened?_
> 
> What? Nothing. I'm fine. How do you mean? 
> 
> _nothing?! its after midnight_
> 
> _..._

What came next was a series of four-letter words that made Molly's rant on Baker Street sound like something Mother Goose might set to music. Sherlock split his attention between scanning the sidewalk ahead of him and his phone, waiting for the indicator bubbles to stop blinking. The flurry of autocorrected text lighting up his screen needed little decoding. To be on the safe side, John fired off an amended version should the words "ducking" and "parson" "hole" require clarification. 

> Feel better?
> 
> _yes thank you it's just been a long day_
> 
> _r u sure ur not hurt_
> 
> _I just thought I dunno maybe u were concussed or_
> 
> ...

The bubbles continued to pulse. Sherlock resisted the urge to interrupt lest there be a prescient nugget of information in John's impending response.

> _or something_

As always, John Hamish Watson was in sparkling form.

> No. Collecting data.
> 
> _it's 1210 i've just got rosie down_
> 
> How is the brightest pupil in my class doing with that tooth?
> 
> _i'm gasping for a bit of sleep b4 ur brightest pupil wakes again so no deflecting_

The rain picked up, blowing sideways off the river. Sherlock gave serious thought to ending this conversation before it became awkward. To be fair, he always thought about ending these conversations. Most of the time, though, he could busy himself with running an experiment or make tea, ignoring John altogether as he dithered on about emotions and _the future_.

Tonight, it was Sherlock with the unbelievable desire to ramble on about emotions and the future. And he'd nothing else to busy his brain without on the streets. Mycroft forbade Lestrade, Hopkins, Dimmock and the rest of the Yard from funneling all but the most routine inquiries to him. Sherlock was allowed only those that could be sorted out remotely, via a few texts, for a three-month period following Sherrinford. His mind had gone to pudding. If Sherlock could ramble illogically at anyone, it was John.

And Molly. But she'd not want to hear from him. Not tonight, anyway. He'd circle back tomorrow, after they'd both had a night's sleep. 

Alone.

He was no longer looking forward to an empty flat but he didn't know how to proceed; well, out in the light of day. He was fairly certain he'd held his own within the walls of his flat, if Molly's enthusiastic and generous reactions were an indication.  

> I'm out of my depths.

The spare, single syllables hit the mark. But the words felt too light coming from his fingers, floating on the screen without any preamble or postscript. And yet, what was there to add? In a strange way, admitting it in simple language made him feel as good as the walking.

Next, he'd discard the prose of science in favor of E.E. Cummings's idiosyncratic lyricism. He'd be damned, however, if he'd lapse into John's typical late night leniency with punctuation and letter case. Or opting for shorthand.

> _yeah u r on the bright side if anyone can help u swim to shore it's molly_

Was it? He wasn't so sure now. And he wouldn't blame her if she let him sink. 

> _listen fr the way she looked when I picked rosie up & way u looked when we stopped by on way home, i'd say_
> 
> _hang on I think rosie's up_
> 
> _..._
> 
> _ur both out of ur minds_
> 
> _..._

The last seemed unnecessary and unlike John, regardless of the hour. Sherlock raked long fingers through his damp hair and pecked out an indignant reply in defense of Molly. He'd defend his own mind at a later date. In person. 

John's text came in before Sherlock put the finishing touches on his own.

> _sorry she's at it again not happy alone in her cot_

He and his niece had that in common tonight. 

> _anyway ur both out of ur minds for each other._

Sherlock felt a sudden pang of guilt for preemptively crafting a terse response. He deleted it before his words got him into trouble. The raw, recent history between them was enough trouble for a lifetime.

> _u always want everything 2 b clever mate no need 2 complicate it_
> 
> _..._
> 
> _u love her she loves u_
> 
> _u know? :)_

The question mark was a nice touch; the emoji was a bit too much twee even for John at the late hour. He admonished himself, however, for opening the door for such twee by starting his text with 'hey'.  

> I think so. Is that it?
> 
> _that's ur problem mate ur always looking for something else_
> 
> _..._
> 
> It's my experience that there's always something else
> 
> _with u there usually is so i'll oblige you: u can be an insufferable arsehole 85% of the time & molly still suffers u _ _within reason_
> 
> _..._
> 
> _she deserves 2 b happy & like rosie she's happy when she's around u _
> 
> _god knows why ;)_

He began to type, stopped. His fingers wouldn't keep up with the words fighting to get out from under the confines of his ribs. John let him off the hook, the indicator bubbles pulsing once more.  

> _r u happy?_

"The conductor of light surfaces," Sherlock smiled. One question and two answers from three little words. At this moment? No, he wasn't happy, dodging raindrops and the truth. Did Molly make him happy?  

> Yes.
> 
> _there's ur answer_
> 
> _she's ur answer_
> 
> _Yes_
> 
> _sounds like you have one more call to make then & for the record Sherlock i've been known 2 b happy around u as well_ 

It was good to have John back on his side.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

 "Hey."

"Yes? Sherlock," Mycroft struggled to keep his tone reserved, yet heard, above the noise around him. "Have you hit your head?"

"What? Of for the love of..No!"

"You do realize what time it is?"

"I think so," he sniped. "Do you prefer I give the hour in military, Mycroft, or civilian?"

Pleasantries exchanged, Sherlock fumbled for the right words to justify his call. Oddly, Mycroft's silence wasn't dripping in smug breathing; he breathed almost patiently as he waited for Sherlock to come round to the point.

"It's about Molly," he sighed.

"Oh, goody. Girl talk. Hang on while I get Daphne and Pru to join us on the extension."  

Irritation flared but Sherlock resisted his brother's bait.

The sound of a boisterous crowd cheering and clinking glassware erupted from somewhere on Mycroft's end of the conversation.

"Are you... hang on," Sherlock shifted, annoyed at the interruption, "are you in a... pub?! What are you doing?"

"Filing _,_ " Mycroft warned. "And I'd like to get back to it so, if you don't mind, Brother Mine, please get to the point."

 _Ah yes,_ Sherlock thought, _the point_. The knife-edge of his brain's unreliability. He'd kept people away from it for a long stretch of his life, convinced himself he had every lobe under control. His flimsy veneer was reinforced with loneliness and narcotics.

In the space of an afternoon, his mind had gone rogue.

As he and Molly walked along Druid Street in search of her little doughnut shop, Sherlock continued to drift further away from the minutia under the arches. He cared little for collecting any data beyond the nuances in Molly's voice, the way the light electrified each strand of her hair with a different shade of chestnut.

And how she and Rosie sparkled when they smiled at him from the helm of a shabby wooden galleon on an estate playground. He squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding sunshine. When he opened them again, Molly was still there, singing into the baby's temple as she banged on the wheel and laughed. Only it wasn't Rosie.

The child in her arms was the same size and shape but her wispy blonde curls had been replaced by a thick mop of unruly black curls. He blinked and the baby smiled back with lush pink lips. She fixed him with smokey blue eyes and tugged at something deep in his chest. 

The little girl made Sherlock's heart race, a familiar beat that accompanied the first hours of a speedball - the rollercoaster up - only without the death wish. He stumbled back to the curb and sat down in a heap. Molly sprinted to him, feeling his head with her cool, comforting hands, looking at his eyes with a mix of medical assessment and intimate concern. 

It was...nice.

But he couldn't make a habit of this. Of her. As much as he wanted to hug her to him, smother Rosie between their bodies, Sherlock wouldn't burden Molly with his defects. So many defects...

She wasn't his addiction. She was he friend.

He'd said as much as he brushed her concern aside, standing and telling her he needed to get back to Baker Street; that he was sorry, he just needed a moment... he'd call her. Later.

God, she was glorious with her soft temper and her hair coming loose from its elastic. He expected the full throttle of her anger then and he'd deserved it. But she surprised him with... understanding.

"These hallucinations, Mycroft. She can't... I can't suffocate her with them."

"I think you do Miss Hooper's - Molly's - love a disservice." Mycroft's voice was oddly comfortable around the word love. "She doesn't require constant, vigilant protection from your darker edges." Mycroft continued, "And neither do you. Ah, here's Greg with my whisky. Sadly, this establishment only has 10 year old. I'll have to spearhead the next outing."

Before Sherlock's brain worked out a response to the tidal wave of information flooding him, Mycroft added,"You know, I don't go in for such things but could it be that your hallucination is actually a  _premonition?_ " 

Sherlock waited for both words to settle between them. One floated upward.

He smiled. "Good night, Mycroft. Enjoy your filing."

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Rain pummeled her windows. Molly watched the street below slick over and waited for the kettle to reach its crescendo. She’d go through the motions of making the cuppa even though she wasn’t interested in drinking it. Wrapping her fingers around her favorite mug - the chunky, chipped I Luv Clapham! she’d rescued from The Brickwood - when they’d switched over to those fancy aqua cups and saucers - always cheered her up. 

Maybe the tea would wash away the bitter swears she’d hurled at the night.

The flats around her were dark, the city’s more level-headed inhabitants having tucked themselves into bed, which was where she needed to be. But _need_ and _want_ were four large letters apart.

Jealous of her untroubled neighbours, Molly's thoughts drifted to the few people she knew who were up watching Saturday drip into Sunday. 

Mrs. Hudson had a devil of a time sleeping through the night if she took her herbal soothers too early. They’d shared many a pre-dawn cuppa and good biscuits at the woman's kitchen table, listening closely for telltale signs that Sleeping Beauty in the flat above had decided to shuffle out of his room and work the patch of carpet in front of his chair.

Greg had an overtime shift on Saturday, a mandatory assignment for all DIs in light of a recent terrorist scare. Hopefully, he’d get some sleep soon. The poor man worked too hard, cared so much about his job in the absence of his wife and kids. Ex-wife. He deserved someone to come home to.

Mycroft Holmes. No doubt _he_ was still awake, playing a rousing game of Axis and Allies - without the board - over a glass of fine Port. Molly pushed thoughts of him aside. Bad enough having one Holmes tripping over her wires. She didn't need the other pulling strings inside her head. He did a fair enough of that in real life.

Oh, that's right. There were _three_ Holmes siblings now. Thinking on the youngest one, however, only landed her back on the middle one and...

"Nope!" She snapped the last consonant, regretting the sound the instant it left her lips. Next, she'd start wearing dressing gowns around the house and steepling her fingers under her chin and... "NOPE!" she repeated, louder this time, trying to dodge that meddlesome consonant.

She was too slow.

Echoes of him popping the same letter ricocheted back at her. The bullet slipped through her ribs and hit the bullseye at the center of her chest.

Molly forced her brain to worry over someone other than the turbulent blue-eyed seas in the big coat. "OK. Right. John. And Rosie." Saying their names aloud might blow the six-foot storm out of her head.

 _Gale warning,_ her heart cut in _, north 15 to 20 veering south…_

Molly huffed and pressed her forehead against the cool glass. With her index finger, she traced a mindless pattern on the condensation left by her breath.

A heart.

 _Not so mindless after all,_ her brain chuckled.

She squeezed her eyes shut and wiped the window clean. "Rosie," she said aloud. Now, there was the antidote to her agitation. The child was perfect. A dream. An angel in spite of the sadness surrounding her. John was a different story. His grief had leveled somewhat; he no longer topped off the ache with alcohol. Waves of sorrow and loss would crash down on him for the rest of his life. But he and Sherlock had started to feel their way back to each other.

They were both better men when they had the other in their respective corner.

"One friendship repaired, one to go," she sighed.

The rain picked up, scoring the night with a soggy, syncopated rhythm. Was Sherlock out in this slop? If so, did he at least duck undercover when the wind blew sideways? Had he bothered to button up that great coat of his? Or did he let the rain completely soak his hair, drip down the back of his neck? Had he eaten anything…

She didn't care; the same thing she told herself while he pretended to be dead.

The lie made her late night walks home from the Tube less agonizing. When she pushed his phantom out of her head, he'd stop taking up so much space in her heart and she could get to sleep after a long day at Bart's.

_Liar._

She'd had a dream, once, while he was away. A kiss framed in slow motion, the grainy black and white of Truffaut. Sherlock crashed through a closed window, tails of his coat floating behind him, like Superman's cape. Batman. Less earnestness, more brooding. He’d stalked her, eyes gone navy blue, never wavering from her face. An intense, almost inhuman, concentration on her. When he flapped the wings of his Belstaff, the atmosphere spiraled and compressed, immobilizing her. There were no words between them, only energy. Sherlock shook the glass from his hair, that glorious mop, and if she'd woken up at that moment, the image would've been enough to carry her through the remaining year of his death.

But he wouldn’t let her wake. He had more to tell to her.

His hands clasped either side of her skull, drawing her in, kissing her. No, not kissing her...

 _Breathing_ her cells and her pulse.

Then he evaporated, taking with him the pieces she offered, tucked inside his coat's breast pocket, close to his own heart while he cheated death all over Eastern Europe, her invisible matter a talisman that would return him to London.

Or accompany him to his grave.

That dream filled her with a strange comfort, a postcard sent from some remote corner of his consciousness to hers. _Not to worry,_ it quipped, _I’ll come back home. SH_

When she woke, Molly remembered thinking how small her skull looked between his palms. How protective Sherlock was of her bones, cradling her with hands strong enough to crush her.

And how potent her effect on him, standing still with all of London around her in her ponytail and lab coat, drawing him to her. 

Her nostrils flooded with the memory of his scent - a faint whiff of posh soap over musk - wrapped in damp Irish wool. Molly swiped at a nonexistent itch on the tip of her nose and caught herself inhaling the back of her hand for remnants of him.

"Stop!!" she chastised herself. She’d never get back to sleep with all these feelings rattling round her head - and sensations rippling over her body.

The kettle switched off with a _click!_ behind her, the sound breaking his spell like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers.

 _Black Magic,_ her brain cautioned.

Molly drifted back into the kitchen and poured herself a mug. Heat seeped through the porcelain, scorching her fingers. She tightened her grip around the burn, the low-grade pain anchoring her to the second floor flat, kept her thoughts from wandering London with the world’s only consulting detective.

But her rooms were a minefield now.

The hallway. He’d stepped out of the shower, cloaked in steam and well-worn cotton pajama bottoms, fogging her good sense with his bedroom voice and _fuck me!_ eyes. His tired, blue-green irises caressed her face, searching for a lapse in her judgment.

 _Permission,_ her heart countered.

Her heart consented long before he’d come from the bath.

Her head, though, wavered just enough that she didn’t act on impulse; she erred on the side of friendship.

Her lounge. What possessed her to do that with him only steps away? What did she think would happen, that _Mr. The Sexual Proclivities Of Sane People Don't Interest Me Even Though I Possess A Body Built For Depravity_ would walk in on her? Pledge his undying love? Drop to his knees and bury his face between her legs?

_Yes. Exactly that._

Her heart, it seemed, had a rejoinder for everything, damn organ.

And her kitchen. Every surface was coated with Sherlock’s residue, him spinning round to make tea, beautiful under that ruffled hair. Distressed beyond the lacerations to his battered hands. Dangerous pirate, mad priest, and a goddamned inverse Prince Charming all rolled into one.

Damn him.

Damn _her._

The night she brought him back to her flat, Molly wanted the deeply flawed man. Not _the_ Sherlock Holmes, minor internet sensation. And he'd offered himself to her in the hallway, under duress.

Molly consoled herself with the truth - the truth as she saw it: he didn’t know what he was asking of her, silently begging her for a comfort he never took with anyone.

"Except a dominatrix," she reminded herself. Miss Adler proved a brilliant receptacle for her own complicated emotions. Anger. Hurt. Jealousy. Loneliness.

_Love._

It was possible to ignore either her head or her heart. But both? She tossed her baggage at another party, instead: Eurus. The youngest Holmes detonated nearly a decade's worth of weak sparks with her game-playing. The smoke overwhelmed Molly this afternoon. She needed a bit of air, thought the excursion to Druid Street would do them both good. And then she’d gotten ahead of herself, unpacking boxes she had no right to open, not after only one night of… togetherness.

 _That was some togetherness,_ her heart whistled. _Indeed!_ her brain smirked.

“One night,” she whispered. “You don’t base your entire future on one night.” It was a sentiment modern professional women around the globe told girlfriends aloud over mimosas and avocado toast on Sundays - both of which she disliked. She preferred her Champagne unadorned and her toast smothered with Welsh rarebit.

The words were a lie modern professional women told girlfriends to conceal the fact that they were human, that they got giddy, sometimes, when the object of their affection considered them with sultry gray eyes from over the top of a microscope; that they let their imaginations run away, sometimes, with visions of summer holidays alone and winter holidays with… _family._

Modern professional women didn’t drift into such uncharted territory after one night.

 _One night…and nine years,_ her brain helpfully supplied.

Molly only wanted to slow down the whirling in her head, stop the runaway train before it blew passed disagreements along the line of which flat, Larkhall Rise or Baker Street, was best for cohabitating or if Clos Maggiore rather than the less formal Andrew Edmunds was the better location at which to announce an engagement.

She worried too much about jumping the track at whether _Sherlock_ should be used as a daughter's first or middle name.

Now she was alone with the rain and a blistering cuppa.

She reached over and flipped on her radio. BBC Four's low mumble would keep her mind from drifting back out the window, down the street, in search of him. 

The radio's monotone only amplified her agitation. Molly thrummed her fingers against the worktop. Nothing to be done at this hour except wait out the night.

"I love you," she whispered into the dim flat and inhaled. The flowery notes eased the tension in her limbs and loosened the knot in her head. Still, she couldn’t bring herself text him. He'd asked for space, such as it was, and, even though she’d convinced herself she needed the same, she’d stormed off with Rosie, upset at having been beaten to the punch. Again.

Molly left him standing in front of St. John looking like she’d just kicked his dog.

She'd respect his request, give him time to sort out all his new feelings while she did the same with hers. That's what friends did for one another. Didn't they?

They were still friends after all. Weren't they?

_Are you?_

Her phone pinged. For all its tinkling, the soft chime nearly jolted Molly out of her skin.

> _Hey._

Jesus Lord! Did he have a concussion? Or was he in his cups? Kidnapped didn't seem like too much of a stretch…

> Did you hit your head?
> 
> _No. Why does everyone keep asking me that?_
> 
> Everyone?
> 
> _Yes. You. John. Mycroft._
> 
> You rang Mycroft?

Maybe repeating the thought aloud would help her make sense of it.

> _Why is it beyond the pale that one brother might ring the other?_

Nope. No sense. In fact, his words were getting weirder. Head injury weird.

> For normal brothers? Not beyond the pale at all. For the Brothers Holmes?

She watched the indicator bubbles, imagining Sherlock typing, brow furrowed as he scanned his brain for the perfect words with which to dazzle. Even with a ringing noggin, he'd be hard-pressed to miss an opportunity for verbosity.  
Instead... 

> _I rang Mycroft._

On second thought, that was the perfect response from him: annoyed, barely multi-syllabic, overtly dramatic in its brevity. Fit for a Drama Queen.

> _..._
> 
> _Shall I send a transcript round Larkhall Rise via post? I'm sure Big Brother has copies in a multitude of formats._

And there was the sally he was dying to fire as soon as he typed the first, the last word he never hesitated to add. His lack of good sense could get him into trouble... But not tonight. At least, not yet. 

> No. Thank you. So. Hey. What are you doing?
> 
> _Walking._
> 
> It's raining.
> 
> _Helps me to think. You?_
> 
> Tea.
> 
> _So you're thinking then._
> 
> Yes.
> 
> _What flavor?_
> 
> Orange blossom & mint rooibos
> 
> _That's not tea._

A laugh tickled her throat in spite of her annoyance. Her worry. God! She'd missed this, his voice blinking at her, each word at once forthright and covert, his mouth curling up at the corner as he pecked out an innocuous sentence, then shot it, like a smoldering arrow.

Molly swiped at her mobile.

> Yes. Fine. I'm enjoying my TISANE then.

The bubbles disappeared. Molly rolled her bottom lip between index finger and thumb until the dots bobbed at the bottom of her screen.

> _..._
> 
> _I'm not good at this._
> 
> Nonsense. You're as well-versed as any Harrowite in the lessons of tea vs tisane.

He didn't immediately respond to her teasing. 

> Sherlock?

Her nerves itched waiting for the bubbles to appear. When they finally did, she let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.

> _..._
> 
> _I've never been responsible for someone else's happiness. Yours._
> 
> You're not. I am.
> 
> _You deserve to be very happy, Molly Hooper._
> 
> So do you, Sherlock Holmes.
> 
> _And are you?_

Molly blinked at her mobile. When it came to Sherlock Holmes, she had a theory that _genius_ was a just a polite term for idiot savant.

He'd cut her to the quick with three little words. Again.

And. Are. You?

She'd never asked herself if their friendship made her happy. She told herself that friendship was their lot, an antidote to her cowardliness. His disinterest in relationships.

Their joint aversion to risk, for all his crime solving and her storm chasing.

He was a mess of a man with new emotions and old wounds, and she reeled from old emotions and new wounds once they’d been forced into I love you.

She’d took it upon herself to erect a shoddy dam around their friendship as soon as Eurus cut the line went dead. In truth, Molly had every right to turn a blind eye to his second attempt to ring through that day, the anniversary of her dad’s death. She could’ve spit the phrase at him and hung up. Could've flat-out declined and hung up. But she didn't. She wanted to hear his voice wrap around the syllables, bleed through the years. So she asked him to say it first.

Sherlock gave her exactly what she'd asked for and that second I love you was perfect. He’d meant it, same as her.

Her heart and brain murmured in unison. _Tell him. Say it like you mean it._

Those three words were a shock. And a release. But her medical autopilot demanded that Molly deal, first, with her shock, so she hinged everything between them on theoretical answers to 'what happens to our friendship after two I love yous?'

Three I love yous, if she counted her response. Four, if she counted Sherlock's instructions to her. And she did.

> Sherlock?
> 
> ...

Her head pounded, impatient for his response, but his dots stopped blinking. When her own fingers took to the screen, they ached to tell him everything but the letters wouldn’t bend, stifled by the size of the damned illuminated box in her hand. 

> Meet me tomorrow. I'll come by Baker Street. You come round here. It doesn't matter.

“Damn this texting!” she groaned. Her response was wooden, arthritic. She'd give anything to have him sitting across from her at the worktop, complaining about her choice of tea, asking after a bottle of wine to open and, perhaps, a late-night omelette to share. She wanted the future to start tonight.

But she'd already hit 'send'.

Her brain spun, quick as a top, for a suitable addendum. She typed, deleted, trying for the proper phrasing, what was in her heart. 

> _Molly?_
> 
> What? Yes. Sherlock. I'm here.
> 
> _..._
> 
> _It's already tomorrow_

The indicator bubbles stalled once more. Molly wanted to scream into the empty space, trapped between typing and dialing. They were better in person than on the phone... 

> Are you home?
> 
> _I think so_

“Oh, please...please, no word games. Not tonight,” she nearly cried.

> Sherlock?

No response. The loss of him swept over her like the chill of those minutes following his fake suicide. He'd turned back to look at her one last time, the collar of his Belstaff turned up, azure eyes blazing with purpose. He pushed through the doors of Bart's maintenance access and vanished into Eastern Europe. She didn't set eyes on him again for two years.

He’d not disappear this time, slip out of her hands and back into his cloistered mind. Eurus had thrown the doors wide open. Now, the only thing left for both of them to do was _jump!_

She froze for an instant at the edge of their precipice, reaching for his hand through her mobile, knowing he was somewhere between Clapham and Baker Street.

> Sherlock? Are you there?

Nothing.

“No. No…don’t disappear on me.” Her body moved before thoughts formed, grabbing her mac and keys, not bothering to change out of her pajama bottoms and t-shirt.

"C'mon! C'mon!" she muttered, pounding on her mobile, willing the app to search for a ride and get the hell on with it.

12:31. If she couldn't locate Über within two nanoseconds, she'd run to Clapham North, take the goddamn tube to Waterloo, switch to the Jubilee. It'd take her ten minutes to run to the station, another twenty-five on the train. Not ideal but she wouldn't be the first crazed woman in her pajamas on the Tube.  
She needed to get to Baker Street. Tonight.

A bell went off inside her head, a buzzing that Molly's brain conjured as it tried to catch up with her body. She ignored the sound, intent on getting to Sherlock.

She flew down the stairs and flung the front door wide, colliding with the world’s only consulting detective.

 

“Oh. Oh! I’m…Oh!” Was all she could say as she stumbled back into her foyer, holding the doorknob for balance.

“Sorry. I was calling round to see if, perhaps, I might get a cuppa tea to go with these.” He held a white bakery bag out in front of him, rumpled and stained with the telltale signs of pastry fat.  
  
Molly tried again to string a sentence together. “Oh. Em. Hi.”

Failed.

“Hello,” he smiled down at her, weary and wet.

“It’s…it’s not tea,” she blinked. How was it possible that her heart raced while her brain slogged through the morass of a toddler’s vocabulary?

Sherlock didn’t seem to notice, content to engage her in more conversation, such as it was, “Ah. Yes. Tisane. That’s right. You were thinking. And now you’re...going out?”

“What? Oh, em, no. Yes… I mean,” Molly shook her head but neither the jumble of thoughts nor her tongue would unscramble. She held onto the doorknob and motioned to him. “It’s raining.”

“Yes,” He stepped into the foyer, careful to keep a respectful distance. They fiddled in their respective personal spaces until he cleared his throat. “Thank you."

A damp chill clung to his Belstaff. Molly felt a sudden protectiveness toward him, an overwhelming desire to smother him in the warmth of her body, take his hands between her own, rub a towel over his hair.

NO! her brain cautioned. Don’t get ahead of yourself again, Hooper.

Words not being her strong just yet - or ever, she signaled for him to give her his coat.

He still wore his fine blue suit underneath all that wool. And that lovely slim-cut lilac shirt. Her heart slammed against the underside of her ribcage, almost propelling her into him again. She clenched his coat between her fists, seeking purchase in the sturdy, expensive weave. He wore posh with the ease of a lazy uni kid in jeans and a t-shirt.

“It’s St John,” he said, by way of clarification, waving the bag between them.

Molly nodded and turned to hang his coat on the peg, catch her breath. His heat wrapped around her from all sides and threatened to overtake her, along with dizziness and a sudden pang of…hunger.

“The filled doughnuts, of course. And an Eccles cake,” he added, his voice coming out several octaves higher than his normal baritone. “A brownie, too…”

She'd never seen him wield a gun or parry a sword, but she knew his skill with all manner of weaponry. Good Lord, sometimes he couldn't shut up about his prowess! But pastry now?

He was killing her with a blunt, sugary instrument.

Her stomach gurgled - loud and sour. She closed her eyes against the smell of butter and spices, sinking her forehead into the folds of his coat. The scratch of the wool and the faint scent of him only pushed her further off-kilter.

She thought she'd have at least half an hour to organize her feelings, match them up to words before she came face to face with him.

He beat her to it. Again.

_Tell him. Three easy syllables._

He cleared his throat, the caramel-colored timbre of his baritone returned. "I wasn't sure which one you fancied most so... Well, if Muhammad won't come to the bakery..." His eyes were on her back, cutting through her layers. She had an overwhelming desire to strip bare in front of him, as she had in his sitting room, and bathe in his attention.

Only this time, she pulled rein, wishing for words to claim all her feelings. If only she could string sentences together.

_Just say it like you mean it!_

She shook off her subconscious and her own coat. When she turned round, Sherlock stood almost toe-to-toe with her. Molly fell backward against the pegs, surprised by his sudden change in proximity.

He jumped back. "I, em...tea, then? Or wine. Either will do,” he shrugged. “ Doesn't matter. Yes. Yes, it does, I should think. With pastry. Tea. Wine. Tisane—"

"I have tea!" she blurted and rushed up the stairs. He followed at her heels, long strides taking the treads two at a time.

"You have _tisane,"_ he corrected from too close behind her.

Not close enough.

His voice rippled over the nape of her neck.

She ignored his teasing, his scent and his tone, intent on getting to the decidedly less provocative safety of her kitchen - with its three little words still hovering about.

Molly flew to the cupboard nearest the hob, reestablishing their safe distance. “Oh. You don’t take it, Typhoo, I mean. At least not without a metric ton of sugar,” She rooted around for something more suitable. "Mine's usually Yorkshire —"

"

"I know," he said softly.

"— but I haven't been to the shops since I got back.“

"I...it's fine. It's all fine. Molly."

"No. No. I think..." She stretched up on tippy toes to pull down a pretty tin. "Mrs. Hudson gave me this loose leaf a while back. Said it’s your favorite...Ceylon...that you might like something more…special….sometime…”

In the absence of a caboose to her train of thought, Molly kept right on talking, waving the tin around and avoiding eye contact with him. “Silly because you’re never really here. For tea I mean…Here. At my flat, She thought...I don't know why—“

“—Molly.” Sherlock rocked on his heels at the far side of the worktop. BBC Four mumbled between them, not wanting to draw too much attention to itself in the uncomfortable silence rattling around the room.

He hugged the perimeter of the kitchen to the wine rack, doing his part to nurture the invisible border they'd been so quick to ambush last night. "Red? Or do you have a white in the fridge?"

She wanted to cross the line, tell him her answer to his And are you? Instead, she stood in front of the kettle, forgetting to flip the switch while he rooted around for the wine key. Hot, wet tears streamed down her cheeks and she let them, giving over to the emotions that closed in on her.

Sherlock crossed the kitchen in one long stride and gathered her to his chest. "I... I didn't mean to put you to any trouble...to come here when it's so late... _Mol-ly..."_

He smelled richer than oxygen. She gulped him in, relaxing into the rise and fall of his chest. He'd beaten her to it, again, blowing through their conciliatory restraint. Molly buried her face and tried to suffocate the tears against his strong, lean frame.

Sherlock stiffened, pushing her out to the end of his arms, attempting to provide her with fresh air. "I'm so sorry. Molly, please..."

His voice was shot through with the same alarm he'd used as he waited on her to return his I love you, Only this time, they weren’t miles apart. She saw his expression; eyes wide and unblinking, pinpoint pupils desperate for data. The blood drained from his face. His shoulders rose and fell as he took in shortwave breaths, hardly enough to fill his mouth, much less his lungs.

Molly's hands flew to her face, unable to stop the laughing sobs or get a word in edgewise around her own hiccups. “Sherlock..."

"Molly, please," he breathed, squeezing her shoulders as though the pressure would blow air into her lungs.

She clasped his wrists and nodded, delirious at having conjured him to the other side of her door, out of thin air and sheer conviction. "Sherlock. I'm okay. It's all...fine," she quivered. "I'm just...I wanted...and then you were at the door...and...happy..." Oh god, she sounded like a blathering village idiot!

He didn't relax his grip, unconvinced of the evidence. ”I've been operating under the assumption that _happy_ is the one where the lips curl…upward," he deadpanned. His stormy gray searchlights swept back and forth over her face. "Mol-ly..."

That voice again. Cautious. Tender. Concerned. A tone he'd only ever affected as a pantomime to get his way, or broadcast his exasperation with ordinary people. Now it shimmied around her, without the hard edges or ulterior motive.

"Molly. I've been told by John...and Lestrade...Mrs. Hudson... that I can be an arsehole fifty percent of the time."

If he didn't have such a firm grasp of her shoulders, Molly would've collapsed from the resurgence of her laughing fit.

His face screwed up. "What???"

"Sherlock...I'm...em, I’m going to be generous here..." She cocked her head, the hiccups subsiding, " _Sixty-five_ percent of the time."

He countered as though trying to lowball an automotive agent. " _Fifty-five._ "

“Done.”

Music swelled around them, woodwinds and strings waltzing to the sweet, old-fashioned tune of 'Sailing By'.

The angles of his jaw softened. " _Fifty-five_ percent of the time...", he continued, appending his statement as the music continued to build. He stopped then, giving the female presented latitude to deliver her familiar introduction:

> "And now on BBC Radio Four, time for the shipping forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at double-O-15 on Sunday…"

They stood locked together as the litany began, neither moving nor speaking, an unwritten agreement to observe the report in silence, a reverence they'd shared since those first overnights, passing the hours of his detox alone in the cocoon of his flat. 

> "There's a warning of gales in Trafalgar. The general synopsis at 1-8-double-O, High, FitzRoy, 1-thousand-26 expected, Biscay, 1-thousand-and-25 by 1-8-double-O Sunday. Low, North Viking 9-9-7. Slow moving. Losing its identity..."

The mysterious combinations, like complex Latin to her ears in their early days together, soothed Sherlock's fevered ramblings better than Mrs. Hudson's tea or the good biscuits. Whether he was marching over the coffee table in bare feet on his way to the kitchen, or tap-tapping the bow on his thigh (or the mantle, the bison skull…), if the night closed in on to 12:48 pm, he'd go to the radio, flip the dial, and stand by.

> "...Malin. Hebrides. Bailey, northwest 5, at first, in Malin and Hebrides. Otherwise, variable, 3 or 4, becoming east or southeast 4 or 5 later. Showers. Good…"

He closed his eyes now and breathed in the words, fingertips whispering over the knobby bones at her shoulders, thumbs dragging gooseflesh across her clavicle.

> "...Cape Wrath to Rattray Head, including Orkney, west or northwest 5 or 6, veering north or northwest 3 or 4. Showers. Becoming fair later. Good..."

Syllables dipped and crested around them.

> "...Selsey Bill to Lyme Regis, west backing south or southwest4 or 5, decreasing 3 for a time. Occasional rain later. Foggy patches later. Good. Becoming moderate..."

The prose of sailors. And pirates.

It didn't escape Tom's notice when BBC Four started accompanying Molly during her late-night work sessions. She'd tune in and avoid all conversation with him until the report ended around 1 am. Sometimes, they'd didn't even converse at all afterward, Molly's mood having turned melancholy.

 _"Why do you listen to that gibberish anyway?"_ he'd complained. _"You don't even sail."_

Molly told herself she wasn’t lying to Tom. "Helps me to sleep if I know the pirates are kept in check."

She told herself she was being poetic with the truth.

He believed her. _“I’ll bet there haven’t been any pirates in London in two hundred years,”_ he'd laugh, planting a kiss to her forehead before slipping off to bed.

She never had the heart to tell him that London pirates were making a comeback.

> "Mull of Kintyre to Ardmanurchan Point, west or northwest 4 or 5, becoming variable 3 or less. Then becoming east or southeast 3 or 4 later. Showers, then fair. Good..."

The words unspooled, a broad width of silky ribbon floating around the British Isles until all the seas were accounted for. Nearly ten minutes of lilting, peculiar code and the sound of their breathing, the only noise in her kitchen.

> "And that's the end of our shipping bulletin, which brings us to the end of our broadcasting day..."

BBC Four bade them a safe and peaceful night. A snare drum erupted and the orchestra came to life. Molly envisioned a nation of insomniacs, much like the two of them, standing at attention as "God Save The Queen" closed the curtains on another day.

Sherlock opened his eyes, irises a tranquil blue now. Remnants of whatever storms brewed beneath his surface had dissipated. "Molly?" Concerned again. Tender.

"Yes, Sherlock?

”Where were you headed? Before?"

"To Baker Street."

He sucked in a breath, downed a shot of atmospheric courage. "Why?"

"Because... your arsehole rating used to be much higher, in the upper 80s, I should think. It's dropped about twenty points in the last few years."

His hands fell to her arms, long, absentminded strokes from her elbows to shoulders and back down to her wrists. Phalanxes, metacarpals... Molly felt every one of his bones. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, ticking off the names in her head and Inhaling his touch. No whirling brain, no _what happens next?_ Just the kitchen, the rain and them; messy, complicated, and endeavoring to try.

She spoke to the ceiling. "I'd say twenty points is quite an accomplishment.” Molly straightened and opened her eyes, locking with his. "I wanted to be around when you knocked off another twenty."

"I love you," he said, the words simple and absolute. "That's all I came to say. I love you. And I want to be with you. So two things, really," he rambled, "I want the future. All of it. With you. So three things really… depending on how you count. Maybe five things. I can't seem to come up with anything else, at the moment. Odd, that."

She helped him out. "Are you happy?"

”Right now?" He narrowed his eyes and considered the question. His broad palms spanned her back. He pulled her to him, his lips brushing her hairline as soon as she was in range. "Yes. Now. You?"

Molly's own hands clasped around his waist and squeezed tight. "Yes. Now." She pressed into him, loving the way his muscles felt against her cheek, his chin resting on top of her head.

A sigh rolled over her skull, the sound deeper than words. Sherlock being Sherlock, however, he had plenty of them lined up.

The syllables flowed, but the brilliant mind no longer played at the words for the delight of his own ears. He stalled, his ego - as much a part of his armor as his Belstaff - tried earnestness on for size. "I...you were upset and I didn't want to...lose you...us. This. It's horrible, thinking that I'd made you... all this time…

Molly looked up. The weight of his body in her arms was solid confirmation that, had she taken any of the opportunities for a future with someone else, she would've regretted doing so in the quiet moments of her otherwise happy life. "Nine years made me, Sherlock. Us. Both of us worked the years from opposing sides.” 

Sherlock didn't equivocate. He held tight while pulling away to get a better view of her face. He looked at her as though he’d never seen her before in real life, only in some watery dream or photograph.

They were running out of words for tonight but they weren't out of the woods."There's just a lot of debris for us to clear out.” She buried her back face into his chest, willing him to understand.

"Yes." He slid his hands over her arms, skimming along to where she was clasped behind his back. "Are we finished, then? With the debris, I mean?" he asked, threading his fingers with hers.

Molly felt the slight tremble in his hands. He'd never been one to ask for help when stuck. But the genius in her arms needed an assist with this deduction - as he had with almost every other he'd ever made in his life. Molly squeezed. "No. There's more. Eurus. Victor, Mary," she sucked in a breath. "You. Me. It's overwhelming, being so happy at the expense of...everything at Sherrinford...your parents...John and the baby… You know, Sherlock?”

He squeezed back. ”Beginning to, yes. Molly?"

She tilted her head. He looked so far away and so near at the same time; physically tall but emotionally closer to her than ever before, even last night. She went up on tippy toes and kissed his chin. "Yes. Sherlock?"

He bent his head and kissed her on the mouth, his approach hampered by the hands-behind-back angle and an unwillingness to unlace his fingers from hers.

Their kisses were awkward, honest. The first ones of the rest of their lives.

He spoke in the spaces between kisses. "I'd like to… stay with you…tonight… if agreeable. We don’t have to…nothing, really…just sleep…”

Molly pulled away and smiled, affecting her BBC presenter's voice, "I'd say your chances of that happening are veering northward, 9 or 10. Becoming fair. Good.”

The shipping forecast had done its job for the evening: alerting all the ships at sea to inclement weather and calming the choppy straits between a surgical pathologist and her pirate.

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

Sherlock stood at the edge of the bed. Molly knelt on the duvet, naked, her skin tingling under the sweep of his ghost gray eyes. He reached for her as though precious sands of time were slipping away, even though they had the rest of their lives together.

He palming her hips and arse, trying in vain to suck her nipples. Molly laughed and pushed him back in retaliation, urging him out of his jacket. Her hands slid down the front of his shirt, skimming nipples as taut as her own. He shuddered under her seductive power as she worked each button, her fingers relishing an endowment not so much fought for as learned; they’d known each other's bodies, on some molecular level, since before last night at Baker Street. Before the Chelsea Bridge. Before I love you.

Of course, they did. They'd engaged in separate reconnaissance for years, collected big data via covert glances and accidental contact all over Bart's lab and the morgue.

All of that intel. It wasn't conquering between them. The phantom touches, the breathing in, the companionable silences, they were like some sort of ancient knowledge.

_Alchemy._

Sherlock swayed into her touch, guiding her to his waistband. He rested his forehead against hers and clasped her hips.

"Mol-ly." Her name stuck in his throat, hot and gravely. The trousers pooled around his feet with little more than a gentle assist from her hands. He stepped out of them, leaning against her for stability. Her body arched into his, again hoping for the possessive bruising of his fingertips. Sherlock’s teeth captured her nipple, his mouth sucking with a force that pulled deep between her legs.

Molly inhaled the sharp electrical current of pain and pleasure.

"God! I'm sorry! I hurt you,” he croaked.

She didn't lie. "Yes. Do it again. Please. Sherlohhhck."

He took her breasts in his mouth before the last syllable of his name dropped from her lips, working one nipple then the other with almost bruising suction. He pushed her to the peak of ecstasy, showed her the sheer drop, then pulled her back moments before she cried out.

_Sorcery._

Her fingertips tugged the wayward curl at the nape of his neck, encouraging him to take her to that point again. He did, repeating the moves over and over until she panted, her nipples raw from his attention. Then he looped his tongue around each areola, soothing the skin she’d ordered him to torment. She whimpered, her body not content with having him close. She needed to absorb him.

Molly cupped his chin and pressed a kiss to his lips, fingers of her other hand gliding over his shoulder, under his arm, down his side. She skirted the elastic of his pants and traced over his bum, loving the smooth, strong feel of him through the fabric. He moaned into her mouth and the wicked vibration slid down the back of her throat.

Witchcraft.

Molly's thumbs slipped between Sherlock's arse cheeks, creasing the cotton there and pulling him forward so most of his weight pressed against her. Chest to chest, belly to belly. She sucked at his elegant clavicle, marking the creamy skin with the bold, possessive signature of her teeth. Sherlock groaned into her hair, a hard breath from deep inside his body's softer recesses. "Molly..." He pulled back and rolled down the waistband of his pants.

A sigh eddied around them. Their breaths combined, each tempting the other.

His lids fluttered for a brief moment, pretty lashes whispering against the almost translucent skin beneath his eyes. A wash of pink bloomed up his neck. The tips of his ears turned red. His cheeks flushed from the glow of her blatant adoration.

She smiled.

_Voodoo._

His cock jerked over the flat planes of his abdomen. Blood rushed to fill his gorgeous length, draining all rational thought from her own brain. She reached for him, pulling Sherlock to kneel on the bed with her her, explore with her.

"Sometimes...I...," he swallowed hard and exhaled through his nose. "Because we weren't...I..."

Sherlock’s breath was hot as a blast furnace, converting words into liquid desire. He'd read her mind. Again. She grabbed hold of his waist for balance as the mattress shifted beneath their knees. Or, maybe her body shifted beneath the weight of his need.

Molly set her lips to his, reclaiming all the time they'd forfeited to friendship. She took his hand, splaying his fingers over his chest. Her palm steered his own down the front of his body. “Show me...," she begged, a request she’d never made to anyone else. How natural it seemed to ask it of him.

How sure she was of his answer.

His eyes widened in surprise, narrowed as his body settled into her thirst for knowledge. He accepted her invitation to indulge the exhibitionist, clasping her fingers in his and drifting down to that beautiful ligament, taut in the dip where his pelvis connected with his leg.

They caressed the smooth flesh together, their breath synchronizing after several sweeps of his hip bone. He guided the explorations to his hairline, spreading their fingers in a V around his base and scrotum, moving his hips and thighs counter to their slow, cooperative strokes.

She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his shoulder. Molly felt the heat of his lower abdomen under her palm, the thick hair, coarse and springy, curling around her fingertips. His silky foreskin gliding over the back of her hand.  
His pulse rippling over the web of his cock's vasculature.

There was power in her touch, and faith in his abandon.

Sherlock's precum melted into her flesh. Her mouth watered but licking the translucent beads, tasting his most intimate fluid, meant removing her hand, relinquishing that place where they worked at his pleasure, together.

" _Sherlohhhck..._ "

"Mmm...," he purred into her temple and flipped her hand. He folded her fingers around his shaft, drawing her up and down, over his velvety length.

Molly opened her eyes and took up the rhythm, controlling it, as Sherlock surrendered to her. His head lolled against hers, his lids floated closed over glassy eyes. He slipped his hand off hers, and palmed his balls, massaging them as they began to contract. The fingers of his other hand clasped around her hip, bringing her closer so his cock could nudge against her belly. She watched their efforts, loving the way his breath hitched each time she covered the swollen glans with his foreskin, sliding her thumb over the ridged corona on her retreats.

_Enchantment._

" _Mol-ly_...I...wait..." He stayed her movements and opened his eyes, blinking into hers. He brought her palm to his lips and kissed her there, lingering on the moist skin. How many times had she taken things from him hands in the lab? In the morgue? How many times had she convinced herself that his touch hovered too long at the center of her palm? Slid too slowly from her fingertips to her wrist? Burned too hotly through latex gloves?

She mapped the ridges of his plush lips now.

Or he branded her skin, seared it with his touch.

Sherlock pushed her back to the pile of pillows at the head of her bed, his sweet, bewildered expression turning almost predatory as he sank down between her legs, spreading her thighs with his hands, hungry for her. Long, low moans wrapped around the room when his lips finally settled at her seam.

Molly sat up and pulled his face to hers. _"Sherlohhhck..."_ She kissed his mouth, tasting her musky, yeasty wetness on his lips. "After...," The word, nothing more than a breath, was absolute. Another request she’d never made to anyone before, didn’t know the order belonged to him alone until he’d blasted through the polite taboo last night.

Sherlock moved to oblige them both now.

He sat up, grabbed her bum and pulled her on top of his thighs to face him. Molly took advantage of the height difference, cradling his head against her chest. He dutifully worshiped her breasts again, moaning around a mouthful of her flesh and angling her hips, rubbing the underside of his shaft against her swollen clit. His breathing turned shallow, stomach muscles spasming with each pass of his straining cock over her pussy.

When she couldn't stand the teasing any longer, she tilted his face to hers, lost herself in his blown-out pupils, black like Jasper, enveloping her in his energy.

"I love it when you look like this, Molly," he whispered. "Your hair loose and the amber of your eyes nearly gone..." he gasped, bending her toward his mouth, lips sucking at her pulse and speaking into her neck. "I need you to swallow me..."

He guided his swollen tip between the folds of her entrance, her muscles greedy for the steel and heat of him.

"Mmmm... _Sherlohhhck..._ " She closed her eyes. Her head fell back into his waiting hand. Her body smothered him, one slick thrust all the way to the base of his cock, the head of him pushing against her limits and still, Molly’s body stretched to take him deeper.

"Jesus! Fuck! Molly!"

He swallowed hard, the sensory overload forcing a sob from his lips, hoarse and fragile. His forehead plastered to her shoulder, breath gusting from his nose across her nipples. He gripped her arse, fingertips, and nails digging into her.

Their rhythm evened out, her hands on his shoulders, neither able to make any sounds beyond the primal. Sherlock’s body met hers in the space between words, the ebb and flow between them dangerously close to a tidal wave.

"Shezza...fuck...Shhhh...just..." Molly had no idea what she said, nor did she care if the words were Mandarin or pig Latin. He understood, his hands sliding to her hips once more, slamming her onto his cock as he thrust upward, over and over, "I'm going to milk the fuck out of you," she growled, her words a profane invocation, “and you’re going to suck up every drop of us. Do you understand me, Sherlock Holmes?”

A keening sound escaped his lips, loud and feral. He thrust in time to a melody no one else heard, unable to stop. Molly cradled his head again, fingers pulling at his hair, feeding her nipple into his slackened mouth. Forcing as much as she yielded. “ _Yesss_."

He gasped and sucked, his syllables dripping over her skin. "God, I'm...coming...fuck!" His hips jerked once, twice, three times before he collapsed against her chest, arms folding around her, almost bending her backward with the force of his own orgasm. He buried his face between her breasts, suffocated himself against her sternum.

Sherlock spasmed inside her, the muscles clenched around him, cradling his cock as her arms did his skull. His cum coated her insides, poured over their tangled legs, a baptism of lust and DNA - and something deeper. Separate collections of data finally bound together.

Years of distance shattered once and for all.

She kissed his temples, buried her nose in his hair. Posh bar shampoo mingled with sweat, the almost burnt smell of sex, and the rich, fecund scent of his cum.

He slipped out and eased her down to the pillows once again, Kissing his way down the length of her body. He grinned at her from between her legs, one corner of his mouth kicking up. Molly’s belly fluttered at the sly promise. She dropped her head back to the pillows and let him play her with all the dexterity and attention he did Bach.

His mouth bathed her already soaked skin in saliva. He sucked her between his lips and held her there, making love to her pussy as though he’d do the same to every inch of her skin in turn.

Jesus! He felt so good!

"Jesus...you taste so good..."

She wiggled with abandon into him. His tongue worked slick laps from the tip of her seam down and back again, the delicious, rough slide and pull of their fucking making Molly so sensitive to his touch. She'd never met a man who delighted in going down on her after he'd filled her pussy with his cum, let alone one that instigated the act. Her entire body ached for more of him, double or triple of him to feast on her, fill her.

Sherlock sensed her closeness and slowed down, slipping his tongue carefully around that spongy area just beyond her entrance, the pleasure radiating throughout her body.

Molly bent one leg and propped herself up on her elbows to watch his dark curls bob against her pale skin. Good lord, he looked pretty with his mouth buried in her coarse hair. Sherlock glanced up at her, eyes now gray-green, mouth and chin glistening. She doubled over him, kissed their mingled particles from his lips.

He urged her back down, eager to suck at her cunt again. Molly relaxed into him, knowing he'd spend a lifetime there, just adoring her. And she’d gladly live the rest of her life here, in this room. She didn’t even need the room. Just this bed. And him.

Gooseflesh tickled her skin as his hands advanced on her breasts, her neck. She drew two of his fingers into her mouth, groaning around them, appeasing her fantasy to suck his cock, swallow him whole, and fuck him while his phantom selves assaulted every inch of her body.

Her hands drifted to her own breasts, pinching each nipple. She squeezed her breasts, relishing the feel of her own skin, no longer wishing for them to be bigger, rounder, higher. She paid penance where it was due, for the years of berating her tits, forcing them into padding and push-ups, hiding them under thick jumpers. She cupped each mound, palming the cool undersides, loving their weight and their shape.

Sherlock was right, they were small, in comparison to others.

And they were hers.

He sighed deep against her. “You’re wrecking me, Molly Hooper..."

Molly arched her back in response. He coaxed a bit of her wetness onto his fingers and slipped the first one in, then a second. Her body sank into the devilish pressure of his knuckles inside of her.

"Oh, God! I'm...I'm close," she panted.

Sherlock moaned again and closed his mouth over her clit, tongue, and lips working in sensual tandem; licking and kneading her bud. She sighed and let her legs go, splaying them wide to take in the pleasure of him. He curled his fingers inside her and explored the spot that made her melt around him.

"Ohhh Sherlohhhck! Fuck!" Molly planted her feet flat on the bed. Her body moved of its own volition, taking in more of his slick, bony fingers. The sensation, coupled with the lavish attentions of his tongue, made her bum, cunt and abdominal muscles spasm in unison. "Fuck!" She grabbed his head and held him firm.

He breathed her in, as he had in her dream.

Swallowed her.

"Fuck! Molly! You gorgeous thing."

His voice radiated behind her eyelids; sound waves shimmying in colors that had no names. She held Sherlock at her center knowing, somehow, that he'd stay there, forever, if she asked him to.

She asked and his mouth answered, cradling her core and absorbing her energy, not moving from her, even as the initial ripples ceased. After several moments, he collected her in his arms and breathed around her.

Molly drifted above them both, tremors exploding deep inside her. She felt Sherlock holding her by an invisible string, content to watch her float. He fused his body with hers, chest and abdomen pressed to her back, the wiry hair between his legs rasping against her bum.

He shifted slightly wedging a hard, slippery quad between her thighs. Her body moved, clenching around Sherlock’s leg, wringing more waves of pleasure from both of them, dissolving into the contradictory sensations him - solid and soft, smooth and rough. Strong and vulnerable.

Molly felt her name ghosting her temple.

And she returned to London for him.

_Magic._

✸ ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸

She sat up in bed, taking a ferocious bite of the Eccles cake. Currents and allspice mingled with pastry and glaze. Molly moaned, hungry for more of everything; they'd missed another proper meal.

The sun had set hours ago on their Sunday. They'd slept the afternoon away, showered together, then returned to bed, promptly making a mess of the doughnuts and each other. Again. Only the Eccles cake was left. And the pastry was disappearing rapidly.

She whispered into Sherlock's ear. "We could get takeaway,” she offered. “ Chinese or...Oh! Tandoori! That burger place stays open late," her stomach grumbled in response. "Regardless, eventually we'll to have to put clothes on."

"Hmmm?" He glanced up from his mobile.

“Clothes,” she repeated. “Food.”

”Mycroft,” he responded. “Wants to know what we're both doing for dinner next week. So, yes, we'll have to dress. By next week, at the earliest."

"How does he know you're...that you and me... Oh never mind."

He blinked at her, as though the answer obvious. "I love you,” he shrugged. He put the finishing touches on his text and settled back against the pillows. "Chips?"

"Oh...no. No. No. No. I don't understand how you can stomach that place."

Sherlock motioned for Molly to feed him another bite of the cake. “It’s not as though they make a habit of serving day-old food.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” she countered. She dropped a bite into his mouth and kissed the glaze from his lips.

He blinked at her. "You are stunning when your skin is pink from the shower. Or is that post-coital ruddiness? Oh, I just remembered something for the bees." He reached for his mobile again and typed himself a quick note.

"I do love you, even if you are king of the non-sequiturs." She kissed his temple "What bees?”

"More please.”

She obliged. He licked the crumbs from her fingertips, then captured her face between his hands. "To clarify, your lips. On mine." He held her skull between his hands, ransoming her for more cake.

Molly balanced a piece on the end of her tongue and stuck it out. "Whaths with the beeths?" she lisped, wagging the cake at him.

Sherlock dutifully sucked the dense pastry off of her, moaning into her mouth. He released her face and planted a sticky kiss on her nose. "I've been thinking about them."

"Ohhhkaaaaay. During sex?"

"Don't be ridiculous. It's almost impossible for me to think on anything during sex."

 _“Almost?_ " Molly cocked her brow, waiting for an explanation.

"Molly, I've been thinking about the bees for most of my life. We've been engaging in various genres of coitus for, what, twenty-four hours? I can't just swat the bees away because I'm drowning in you now can I?"

She snaked her arms around his torso and rested her cheek on his chest. His heartbeat thumped a perfect rhythm under the protective shield of his rib cage. How many times had she almost lost him? Early on, when he'd challenged Jim at the pool? Later, when he'd sought her help with this suicide?

Out of the corner of her eye, Molly saw the shiny web of scar tissue rise and fall with his breath. A small pearl embedded in his coat of armor.

How pale and powerless he looked, attached to every tube and monitor Bart's could hook up to him. Unconscious. Still and ashen. Like the dead on her slab. Molly spent hours in the ICU immediately following his surgery. She'd pulled rank for the privilege of sleeping in the uncomfortable chair at the foot of his bed.

She watched as the morphine dripped into his body, knowing the vicious drug was savior and invader to an addict. Molly was so protective of him in those hours, she told the night nurses she'd conduct the tube and monitor checks herself so they could concentrate on other patients.

So she could be alone with him, willing him to live.

When she found out he'd gone AWOL, Molly made bargains with the moon, again. She told the orb that she just wanted him to live, to be happy, whatever that meant for his future - even if she'd never been a part of that future. "Please, just let him live and, if it's not too much trouble, please have him turn up here at his old bolt hole.”

The moon answered her prayers, again. Sherlock lived. Sherlock promptly met Janine.

It took some time before Molly and the orb were back on speaking terms.

And, most recently, she'd almost lost him at Sherrinford based on the events he'd skimmed over last night while they were sitting in front of his fire. There were narratives to follow up on in his story, books to be checked out from his mind palace. But not tonight.

Sherlock pinched her bare bum. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Oh, sorry." She rested her chin on his abdomen, his skin still flushed, sticky from their recent lovemaking, and looked up to him. "You mean about the bees? I suppose your cursory explanation is perfectly logical for a genius."

"Quite. My mind palace can hold onto -"

She rolled up to sit on him, bare bum resting on his belly, inner thighs straddling the indentation where his lower abdominals met his obliques. She pinned his wrists above his head, knowing he could break free anytime he liked. But he didn't. He relaxed under her, enjoying his role of damsel in distress. And she loved him for it, amongst so many other things. "And by 'genius' I do mean 'off your trolley'. I trust you're not considering bees in the same context as my bits. I prefer bees in my bonnet, not a swarm up my bum."

"An interesting turn of phrase. I wonder if that's how vibrators were invented. The noises are similar. Bees, vibrators…” He drifted off to wherever he went when presented with a previously unexplored topic.

She twisted his nipple. "So. What else have you been thinking about? During sex, I mean."

"Oww. Was that necessary?"

"Yes. What else have you been thinking about? During sex."

"You."

"Awww. " She batted her lashes at him, then tweaked his other nipple. "And the bees."

He freed one hand to tuck a damp tendril of hair behind her ear, "Yes. You and the bees go hand-in-hand. The bees are in our future. Someday, I'm going to marry you, Molly Louise Hooper."

She sucked in a breath, unwilling to speak should he dissolve into nothing but microscopic particles beneath her, the whole weekend a byproduct of her jet lag.

"Silly, that expression, I know,” he continued, "as if you didn't have any say in the matter. We're going to marry _each other_."

"How...how long have...you been thinking on that?" she stuttered.

"Nine years. Give or take. There's an entire wing in my mind palace devoted to..."

Molly's head buzzed, drowning out the rest of his sentence. Bees circled, wings whispering words like 'future' and 'marry' inside her skull.

Her heart.

"...anyway," he continued, "I'm not some marauder, sweeping into the village, abducting the loveliest girl back to my bed. So..."

He rambled on, Molly felt his voice thrum in his belly but didn't hear anything he said. She followed the bees, watching their lazy flight amongst tidy knots of lavender and rosemary. A quick flash of black and yellow and they dove over a low hedge wall, spiraling around a wide expanse of sunny lawn and a magnolia tree.

The thick haze and then their collective energy pushed wide the heavy arched door of an old stone house, an impressive but unfussy manor. Fireplaces, clawfoot tubs large enough to bathe a pack of hounds in. Comfortable, worn carpets. Persian. Maybe a vintage William Morris. The odd Jacobean or Biedermeier piece tucked near a tall leaded window.

A muted, intimate bedroom. Masculine touches of leather, ochre and black tempered by the femininity of soft, un-dyed linen and smokey gray velvet. A collection of insects in shadow boxes lining the reading nook.

The massive, lush bed piled high with pillows. Rarely made.

The overstuffed and inviting sitting room. Well-loved Le Corbusier, surrounded by stacks of his books. her old vinyl albums. The smell aging paper, posh soap, top note of Lily of the Valley. Laptop balancing on a tower of BMJ back-issues. Rocks lining the mantle. A small blade with a beautiful ebony handle sunk into the old wood. A skull.

Sheet music on a stand. A violin.

Two microscopes, stationed across from one another, at an antique lab table in the center of the manor's kitchen. A utilitarian space, kitted in cool marble and worn soapstone, practical stainless steel. A deep porcelain basin. Windows open to a small kitchen garden and a flagstone path that disappeared into the woods behind. Walls painted a milky Farrow and Ball white, cabinets a rich sea glass green.

A room begging for omelettes and experiments.

Rosie's tempera paint handprint and signature on the wall of the stone foyer, framed for posterity in police line tape.

Her accomplice's imprint by its side, smaller than hers.

And another. Smaller still...

Molly's eyes stung from the vision. A single tear tracked down the side of her nose and landed on his upper lip. Sherlock licked the salt away and smiled.

"Someday, I'm going to accept, William Sherlock Scott Holmes."

His eyes went wide, jaw slack. "Promise?"

She leaned forward and breathed into his mouth. "Promise. What did you think I was going to say?"

"I don't know." He brimmed with boyish charm, mouth quirked up at one corner, as he considered her. "Sometimes you say awfully filthy things, Molly Hooper."

She laughed in agreement. "And, Sherlock? A bit of marauding every now and again isn't a bad thing."

Sherlock flipped her onto her back in a stealth move, stretching his long, naked limbs over hers, his weight at once protection and seduction. "Filthy," he smirked. "Do you promise?"

Molly hooked her legs around his torso, countering with protection and seduction of her own. "I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, again, for your kind eyes; these words are in no way, shape or form beta'd.
> 
> But facts don't always support my romantic notions :)


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